AN ACT relating to disabled and deceased veteran benefits.
HB 381 updates Kentucky statutes governing tuition waivers for certain family members of deceased and disabled veterans. The bill amends KRS 164.507 and KRS 164.515 to provide that eligible spouses, children, stepchildren, and orphans may receive tuition and matriculation fee waivers at state-supported universities, community colleges, and vocational training institutions for up to 128 credit hours of undergraduate instruction. It preserves eligibility for families of veterans who died on active duty, died from a service-connected disability, served during qualifying military conflicts or emergencies, or were permanently and totally disabled, including certain Kentucky National Guard and Reserve Component members.
The bill also modernizes the statutory language by replacing older time-based limits for vocational training with the 128-credit-hour cap and clarifying documentation requirements for proving family relationship, service status, disability rating, and residency. It continues to require honorable discharge where applicable and specifies that scholarships may be applied to incidental expenses before any remaining balance is returned to the student. The measure does not create a new benefit category so much as it reorganizes and clarifies existing educational assistance for veterans’ survivors and dependents.
HB 381 would amend Kentucky’s higher education and veterans-benefits statutes, specifically KRS 164.507 and KRS 164.515, to align tuition waiver provisions with a credit-hour-based framework and updated eligibility language. Its practical effect is to preserve and clarify fee waivers for qualifying dependents of deceased veterans, disabled veterans, National Guard members, Reserve Component members, prisoners of war, and service members missing in action, while maintaining the state-supported institution coverage already in law. The bill primarily affects state universities, community colleges, vocational training institutions, eligible veteran families, and the agencies responsible for certifying service and disability records.
The available context suggests generally favorable treatment of the bill, or at least no recorded opposition in the materials provided. There are no committee transcripts or recorded votes included, and the bill was referred to Postsecondary Education, which is consistent with a policy update focused on student financial benefits. The caption and statutory revisions indicate a supportive posture toward veterans and their families, with the bill framed as an adjustment to existing educational assistance rather than a controversial expansion.
No specific points of contention are documented in the provided materials. Potential areas of scrutiny, based on the text alone, could include the scope of eligibility for spouses, children, stepchildren, and orphans; the 128-credit-hour limit; and the documentation required to verify service, disability, and family relationship. However, no legislator, committee member, or stakeholder objection is recorded here, so any contention would be speculative rather than evidenced by the bill history supplied.