YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyTransparency & AccountabilityColleges could get up to $500,000 to run campus centers for student veterans — renewed through 2034
Your Money
Colleges could get up to $500,000 over four years to run a center for student veterans and troops. The center would offer a lounge, tutoring, and help with benefits and the move to school life.
Transparency & Accountability
The bill approves money for fiscal years 2027 through 2034, and then Congress would have to vote again. The old approval ran out after 2014.
More about this bill
If you are a veteran or service member taking college classes, your school could get help running a veteran center. The Department of Education would give grants to colleges, or groups of colleges, to open or run these centers. Each grant would last four years and could total up to $500,000. A center would be a set space on campus with a lounge for student veterans, their families, and local veterans. It would also have one office to help with benefits, class credits, job hunting, and disability rights. At least one staff member or volunteer there would be trained to advise on veterans' benefits. Schools that offer mental health counseling, a separate veteran orientation, or veteran staff would get priority. Each school would have to show how it would keep its center open after the grant ends. Today's law gives three-year grants with no dollar limit. Its approval to spend money on the program ran out after 2014. This bill would approve money for fiscal years 2027 through 2034. The department would report to Congress within three years and post a best-practices website.
Congressional Summary
Veteran Education Empowerment Act This bill reauthorizes through FY2034 and otherwise revises a Department of Education (ED) grant program for student veteran centers. Specifically, ED must make grants to institutions of higher education (IHEs) or consortia of IHEs to establish, maintain, improve, or operate a student veteran center. A student veteran center is a dedicated space on a campus that provides students who are veterans or members of the Armed Forces with (1) a lounge or meeting space for themselves, their spouses or partners, their children, and veterans in the community; and (2) a centralized office for student veteran services that serves as a single point of contact to coordinate comprehensive support services for student veterans.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in Senate
- Action Date
- 2026-09-29
- Date Added
- 2026-10-21
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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