Update: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today that the implementation of its new enrollment management system will be delayed from mid-January 2023 to early March. Colleges and universities will be able to submit enrollment certifications during the peak Spring semester enrollment period using the current VA-ONCE system.
While ACE and the higher education association community said in a letter last week that a delay until summer would be optimal, this reprieve is a welcome development. For more information, see the VA's email to institutions here.
**********
December 12, 2022
ACE and more than three dozen other higher education associations and organizations sent a letter last week to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) expressing concern that a transition to a new enrollment management system could disrupt and delay critical veteran education benefits, including veterans' monthly housing allowances, particularly for new student veterans.
VA has announced that its current enrollment management system, VA-ONCE, will sunset Jan. 13, 2023 as the VA prepares to transition to a new system by the end of January. In the interim, there will be a period, possibly of two weeks or more, when institutions will be unable to submit any veteran benefit certifications to the VA.
In the letter, ACE and the other organizations strongly urge the VA to delay this systems change for at least several weeks or ideally until the summer of 2023, and to use this additional time to provide additional training for school certifying officials.
"We understand that VA believes that Enrollment Manager will be a significant improvement over the current system and will provide a more intuitive and user-friendly experience for certifying officials," the letter states. "We are hopeful this will be the case and appreciate VA's efforts to bring about improvements to the current system. At the same time, we respectfully urge VA to delay the roll out of the new system to ensure that veterans' benefits are not delayed or otherwise impacted."