The VA considers a standard semester as 15 to 19 weeks. If you are a traditional undergraduate student, 12 credit hours of full-term classes is considered full time. Please note: You must be in at least one residential course (and full-time) to fulfill the requirement for full BAH.
If you are in the adult degree program, it is likely that you are taking eight-week courses instead of full-term (16-week) courses. The VA considers terms less than 15 weeks to be “non-standard.” This requires them to calculate full-time based on a formula. See example below.
VA’s formula is as follows: number of credits pursued multiplied by 12 and then divided by the number of weeks of the course. You would then divide that number by 12. Therefore, if you were taking 6 credit hours during an 8-week term, you would be considered at a 75% rate of pursuit. At this rate of pursuit, you would receive 75% of the housing allowance.
If you have questions, reach out to our School Certifying Official, Billie Scroggins.