Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program (VMSDEP)
The Virginia Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program (VMSDEP) offers education benefits to spouses and children of military members who are killed, missing in action, taken prisoner, or rated by the US Department of Veterans Affairs as totally and permanently disabled, or at least 90 percent disabled due to military service.
The Virginia Department of Veterans Services (DVS) manages the program and works with the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) and public colleges to help spouses and children of military service members and Veterans achieve their educational goals.
If the dependent and their sponsor have resided in Virginia for at least 5 years, they can apply for this benefit. Please visit the VMSDEP website for eligibility requirements and the online application.
Please direct school-specific VMSDEP inquiries to umwbills@umw.edu.
University of Mary Washington VMSDEP Process
The process for applying the tuition and fees waiver to the student account at UMW depends on the eligible student’s action.
Each semester a student wishes to use the benefit, the student must update the term information in the VMSDEP portal. Please be sure you have registered for classes. Tuition and fees must be assessed on your student account before the waiver can be applied. This should be done by the first day of class to avoid any delays or penalties.
VMSDEP has established permanent open and close enrollment dates for the program:
- Fall: Open July 1 – Close October 31
- Spring: Open November 1 – Close March 31
- Summer: Open April 1 – Close June 30
UMW extracts participant names from the Institutional VMSDEP portal on a weekly basis.
The waiver will be visible in the student account once the Office of Student Accounts has manually applied the waiver.
Tier 2 students eligible for the stipend: The stipend is validated after the add/drop date. If state funds are available, the stipend will be disbursed to your student account as financial aid. Please note that this is approximately 6-8 weeks after the start of the term.
UMW will not process retroactive VMSDEP requests. We strongly encourage students to update the VMSDEP portal before the first day of class and no later than the publicized enrollment deadline dates noted above.
Please note that summer is considered a term. If requested, it will count against one of the 8 semesters awarded by VMSDEP. Plan accordingly. Some students choose to self-pay for summer because it’s usually a reduced schedule and does not maximize the use of the tuition waiver. Additionally, stipends are not available to Tier 2 students.
If you have received non-refundable, tuition-specific aid, it will be adjusted and removed once the waiver is posted to your student account. In addition, Federal Financial Aid will be adjusted based on the updated cost of attendance.
