 Hey guys welcome back to Airman Vision and if you're new consider subscribing. Today we talk to Andre Acosta who's a tech sergeant in the Air National Guard as a recruiter. We asked him a bunch of questions about tuition and education while in the Air National Guard. Today we have tech sergeant Acosta he's in the Air National Guard and we're going to be answering some questions about college tuition going to college while you're in the Air National Guard. But first I want to just have you introduce yourself what you do for the Air National Guard and how people can contact you and then a brief overview of your time in the Air Force. Yeah thanks so I'm Andre Acosta I'm a recruiter for the California Air Guard and I've been in the Air Force 18 years now started 13 years in active duty side and then five years in the Air National Guard also known as the Air Guard. I've been able to have a wealth of experience you know started off at Beale Air Force Base in California then moved transferred or PCS permanent change the station to Osan Air Force Base Korea then Virginia at Langley Air Force Base on to Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii where I went and joined the Hawaii Air National Guard and then the Wyoming Air National Guard and now finally the California Air National Guard which is home for me you know I'm born and raised in California and it's great to be able to serve my local state you know I'm literally stationed 40 minutes from where I grew up and and this will be my last assignment so it's really just about giving back helping the next generation of enlistees as as they make a decision of what branch to join and how to make the best moves for for their future and their career if anybody has any questions you know or would like more information about the California Air Guard just feel free to send me a text or call me directly on my work cell it's 805-415-7269 again that's 805-415-7269. Alright so like we said we're going to be answering some questions or I'm going to be asking and you're going to be answering about college tuition all that stuff right because education benefits are a huge reason that a lot of people join the military so it was no surprise when we asked for questions about the Air National Guard that we got several that had to do with college and tuition and just the education aspect of things so the biggest question was can you go to college when you're in the Air National Guard? Absolutely so when you think about the different Air Force options like active duty Air Force reserve or Guard I would say in my opinion and I know I'm a little bit biased but like the the Air Guard is the best Air Force option to go to college with and I'll tell you why you know simply it's because we're part-time so that means you have time to be a full-time college student right because you need time to go to college right you know college takes time it takes energy so being a part-time member of the Air Guard having the Air Guard pay for college is a huge benefit so you're not having to worry about cost of college and then you have the time to focus on your studies. So the next question on top of that you know people want to know can I join or can I join the Air National Guard and go to college but if I can go to college who's going to pay for it am I going to pay for it are they going to pay for it are they going to pay for half am I going to have to take out student loans how is that process going to work so how much or do they pay at all for you to go to college? Yeah so it's actually fairly generous and in each state because you know the Air National Guards are state specific each state is going to have different educational benefits so I can only talk about California but there's going to be similarities and applicabilities between the states now to get the college benefit you do have to be a fully trained Air Guardsman so that does mean you have to graduate basic training and tech school and then when you get back from tech school you'll have access to that funding. Now I'll list some of the funding examples that we get as Air Guardsmen so you do get access to the Montgomery GI Bill right so that is currently 350 I want to excuse me 350 a month as a full-time student that's going and taking at least four classes a semester right and then you do get access like our base in particular gets access to Air Force tuition assistance which is the same the active duty in the reserve gets that's 3700 a year and then also as a California Air Guardsman or California National Guardsman you have access to the California National Guard Education Assistance Award program which is a really long title and acronym but essentially depending on the type of school you go to they'll pick up the tab for tuition it's much like the Cal Grant which is a California grant so you apply for it every year but if you were to give some math and some examples right if you go to Cal State University Northridge right which is about 5000 a year they'll pick up the full tab for your tuition so it's a full ride there if you go to UCLA which is a fairly popular if you're a Bruin fan right that's they'll pay up to 12 000 a year for that for private schools they'll only pay 9 000 so if you're a Trojan like a USC fan unfortunately that's not going to be enough i'm going to ask about USC because that's a big that's a big yeah that that's a big one man but uh so you can of course there 9 000 a year with that now you can you do get there's a couple different things USC does offer a yellow ribbon program so you can tap into that and it's just different different pools of money some of those schools those uh really popular schools do get a little bit pricey but it's nice to have that funding if you go to a local or Cal California school you know they'll pick up the tab entirely all right so on top of going to college right you already said that we can do that but what about Air Force ROTC that was a question that stood out to me when I read it in the comments because I was like you know I never thought of that like like not just going Air Force ROTC but doing that while you're in the guard is that something you're able to do I'm assuming they would like they're almost like that because the point of uh like Air Force ROTC is the commission and so like that would help the guard if if somebody gets that finishes that program and then commissions yeah so yeah you can absolutely do both it is kind of a lot for for somebody to do both right because you're wearing almost like two military hats simultaneously so to speak but the nice thing with the guard is you're getting actual experience while you're in the guard right and we're going to pick up the tab for college once you graduate from tech school so it's immediate like we're talking about freshman year the thing with the ROTC scholarships right a lot of times they're not getting those scholarships they'll sophomore or even junior year so they're still going to be responsible for you know your your freshman year for payment of that freshman year so yes you can absolutely do both and there's added advantages to doing both the big one is you know getting college paid for in its entirety and then once you do graduate from college the ROTC will line you up straight for that commission and the air guard will let you go they're not going to hold you back uh you just set up uh basically a release form to our commander in the in the air guard side and they're going to love that they're going to encourage you and want you to commission so prior prior service officers are very sought after commodities for the military because they actually have an understanding of the military exactly so rather than you know I've been in college and you're like yeah but that doesn't translate perfectly to like being in charge of a bunch of military members if you've never been in the military yeah that's exactly it having that experience it's going to be very helpful and relatable right because a majority of your team is going to be enlisted so it makes uh that much better a leader a big fear that a lot of people have with going to college in the guard would be what happens if I deploy right if I'm if I'm in the middle of my classes and they're like hey we have a deployment coming up and you're like but my classes like how does that work with somebody so the air guard rarely deploys on an instant you know you'll have notice it's not like you know the plane is taken off you need to hop on you know in an hour you'll usually have more than enough time and notice to finish up that semester like I mentioned in one of our other videos there's usually a wait list for for deployments you'll know when this deployment is coming and you know and if you're not able to deploy because you're in college you know usually you can go to the back of the list right so to speak or just say let me get the next one so that's not really a common issue we have most people are able to finish that semester if it should happen or you know just say I'll get the next deployment if at all because and I do want to touch on this point most of deployments are going to be more volunteer based for the air guard so that's a nice luxury we have specific to the air guard I can't extend that to to the all the other branches but with the air guard in my experience that's how it's been so what you're saying is essentially if somebody was like well I'm going to finish college in a year and a half I really don't want to put off that semester you know because it's going to push it out even further so they're like hey like let me let me skip this deployment once they finish their college then it's like hey I'm all four going on deployments at that point they can kind of you know you know control their own future in a way exactly and that's the the big thing with the guards having that control and that flexibility to balance you know whatever your full-time ambition is whether that's full-time college student full-time profession you know you can do both so that's pretty cool so something that we talked about earlier was that yes the international guard can cover some of your or all of your college tuition something that people are interested in and the active duty used to do this and then they started phasing it out I'm pretty sure and I don't even know I don't think it's a thing anymore but the student loan repayment program is that something that the international guard offers it used to be much bigger like a decade ago for active duty but even when I joined it was like almost unheard of my recruiter knew nothing about it like even when she tried to look it up like there was there's not much information about it because they were trying to get away from it I'm pretty sure because they wanted people to join when they were younger rather than go and get their student loans then join and have us repay it back right they want to actually incentivize people to join and then we'll cover your costs so does international guard do that if you have somebody that's already got a degree and they're coming in or or they did two years and they they have an associate degree not enough to commission but they want to go enlisted do they cover so at this time unfortunately we do not have a loan repayment program and kind of like what you talk about active duty it's like hit or miss it depends on the timing right now the the the military in the air force is kind of over manned overall right so that's not one of the incentives that we offer in the air guard now now to be unbiased and fair I have heard that the army national guard does have a loan repayment program so if that's a priority to somebody they can of course go army guard and take advantage of that benefit on the other side of the coin you know if paying back that that loan is is something that's on everybody's head because I'm sure it is right you want to get free of that debt you know we do offer bonuses job bonuses so right now you know it can be anywhere from 15 000 uh you know at the top end for that initial job bonus so let's just say you want security forces right now right 2021 you could get that 15 000 it is broken into uh installments you're getting half at your three-year mark and the other half at your five-year mark of your six-year enlistment and you do have to pay taxes right so that's like a big like man taxes kind of like a big chunk but but again that that'll come out to like almost 10k that you'll have to repay loans and then something else to think about is while you're in basic training and tech school you know you have very few expenses right you know you're you're not paying for food maybe you're paying for a cell phone usually your car insurance you're not having to pay for because it's sitting somewhere right so I always tell my enlistees man basic training in tech school is a great way to save another 10k very easily you can save 10k so that can you can just save all that money and then put that towards that debt so there's some there's some uh some solutions there if you just get creative another thing to think about too like if you're trying to get into an ivy or a pretty pretty popular school you know joining the air guard you're on veteran status and so that gives you some preferences out the gate out the gate so you can get into some better or popular schools a lot of times that would be harder to get into without that veteran status because as an air guard member immediately you're you're considered a veteran and then you have the time to go to school so I'm talking about you don't have to do that whole four-year contract on active duty I'm talking about like within a semester of joining you're already able to apply to you know some bigger named schools or transfer from your last school into there's just so much flexibility there so that that's really similar to applying for even jobs is we I went to school for criminal justice so I wanted to become a cop and then I ended up dropping out after a year and a half and then joined the air force but that was something I had applied it to police departments when I was still going through school because I was like might as well you know at least if I'm not going to get the job at least get the experience with interviews once I get my degree I've already been through the process so it's not a scary right I was trying to set myself up to be as successful as possible to not be like I've never gone through these interviews before but I have a degree you know it's like oh I've been through the interviews I got my degree like I'm good like as soon as I graduated I was like I'm getting the job so but our instructors would always or our professors would always joke about how a lot of people don't realize that if you're prior military like especially in law enforcement they're like you automatically go to the top of the stack they're like oh you're you're a veteran or prior military they're like oh yep you already are more qualified than everyone else and that's it like that's the only thing it doesn't matter about college degrees didn't matter about this it was like you're already like considered the top 10% candidate if you have prior military just because you've proven that you can follow orders that you can listen that you can pay attention to details right like in order to be in the military like you have to you have to fit all those things and so that was like a big thing is not only does that help with college like you said you become you know a veteran uh are you a veteran status when you're applying for some schools that are prestigious but even careers later on is that's a good point yeah that's true you know waking up early on a consistent basis it sounds simple but it's it's a it's a very good skill to have and that's one of the things I don't have to buy that skill anymore I am I'm not a morning person at all I'm like the biggest night owl so I'm like my current job right now I have to get up early but I have one week left and then I'm going to be able to work from home so I'm like yes I gotta create my own schedule now but yeah it definitely is uh being in the military you know it's like I can't really complain all that bad about my job right now because I definitely had to be at work way earlier a lot more often in when I was in the military and then especially like basic and tech school like that first like when you first join it's like five in the morning you wake up every day and it's not like a subtle wake up at five in the morning it's like a very loud chaotic wake up like your blood is rushing right away so yeah kind of like trips you into this mode where you're like trying to be punctual and on time and yeah so it definitely helps with uh getting a job later on um and I didn't know that about colleges either I didn't know some colleges but it makes sense because some college may offer like incentives to get veterans to go there because they want you to spend your GI bill to go there they want that tuition assistance that the military provides because that's to them if they can convince a veteran to go there then they get that money guaranteed yeah and you know one of the things too that now that we're segueing kind of into that what what I encourage people to to do if when they join the air guard is like in your circumstance if you know what your major is you can use the air guard to get job experience so if for example if it's your criminal justice major you know security forces is a popular job which is a law enforcement within the air force so you can have that job experience to compliment your major so that I recommend too that's that's a pretty cool way to do it so like if somebody's interested in eventually becoming a nurse or going to med school they could become a med tech with us or something within the medical field also it is a popular one of your gonna major in computer science right you can get one of the like we have eight or nine different it jobs with software hardware networking cyber security like you know air force is big on tech so like there's just so many avenues for you to explore and take advantage of you know as a college student so I know you had touched on this a little bit earlier but what about the GI bill active duty provides the GI bill for service members those international guard have access to the GI bills so you have the post 9-11 and the Montgomery GI bill do you have access to both of those in the international guard and I know one thing in active duty for the Montgomery GI bill you have to opt into that in the very beginning or you can opt out of it in the beginning and just not pay into it because it costs $1,200 a hundred dollars a month for 12 months so that was what was with active duty I ended up opting into that so I still I haven't opted out of it yet to the post 9-11 because Montgomery is more if you want to go like part time to college versus post 9-11 requires you know more like full time commitment and so having the Montgomery as an option is always a good thing that's why I haven't opted out because I haven't gone back to school yet but I'm still you know we're still figuring out life and getting there but I want to hang on to that Montgomery just in case you know I do get a career going and then I'm like well I still want to take a class or two on the side and be able to have it paid for so does the guard allow you to pay into that like active duty does and then do you get the post 9-11 as well yeah so we we give all of our members the Montgomery GI bill and you don't have to opt into it or pay for it anymore so that's kind of nice when I joined 18 years ago you had to pay 1200 bucks to get the education benefit things have definitely evolved and improved so they don't require the payment at all like period even at all at all what I know right where's my 1200 bucks ripped off I think you I think if you opt out of it though you get your 1200 back if you don't use it at all if you opt out I I've heard you I haven't heard that I have heard that if you finish if you exhaust the benefit then you'll get your 1200 back but the changes all the time you know you just got to stay attuned to it so that's why videos like this me putting the information out there and and and envision putting out information is so helpful and it can change over time too so always make sure you're trying to look up this is kind of just like a guide or a reference so then make sure you're double checking with what the current standards are absolutely so so every air guardsman gets the Montgomery GI bill now that's only good while they're in so I do encourage the member like if you're planning to go to school as a air guardsman go to school while you're in because that's that's different than active duty because you get it while you're in but you also get it while you're out so so the active duty gets nowadays they're getting the post 9 11 GI bill which is far more robust you do have to serve at least three years of active time to get the post 9 11 GI bill on active duty you can get the post 9 11 GI bill on in the air guard right you just have to serve at least 90 days of excuse me not 90 days three years of full time right and it and it does have to be federal orders so that's kind of like deployment order so it can be hard to get on the air guard side to get the post 9 11 GI bill you know because you essentially have to do you know three years of deployments or you know average Air Force deployment is like six months so that's like you know six deployments that you're doing right which is kind of a lot for an air guardsman yeah but you can get partial like it's not unheard of for air guardsmen to do one or two deployments and do like you know 30% of a post 9 11 GI bill things like that and still use some of that benefit what I encourage is really just figuring out what school you want to go to because the education benefits that the air guard gives are a lot of times more than enough you know because you're already getting a full ride you're already getting you know I was talking about doing some simple math like an 18 year old who joins the air guard and goes to a cal state that's like a local college a local four-year college right where you could easily pick up the tab for college and then they would have about you know maybe 900 dollars in their their bank account in addition that's because of the Montgomery GI bill which is 350 ish right and then the Montgomery GI bill kicker which almost doubles it and then their their drill pay which is 200 dollars the cumulative of all all those three would be about 900 dollars imagine that you like you're an 18 year old going to college air guard member local college you're getting 900 bucks in your pocket in your bank account each month from the air guard and they're picking up the tab for tuition so that can be more than enough yeah obviously to to survive and thrive as a college student so I do just encourage to break down the math and see if it all makes sense in most cases it will it's more than enough we've talked about this in other interviews with you if you guys haven't seen those on the channel be sure to check those out I'll have those linked in the description but and I know a lot of this stuff can sound confusing kind of like what you're talking about being a resident one state being an air guard member in another state going to school in one of those states so we the nice thing is majority of the members of the air guard in that in your your wing or part-time and they're probably going to school so there's a lot of help around you know you can talk to we have a retention manager at each wing who can help you kind of plan this out we usually have different college pocs and now every college has a like a military liaison at the college so there's so much help around to to help you weed through the math and figure out what what's best but I will tell you it's never been a better time to be a veteran student you know you know there's never been as many benefits that are now you know the big advantage of the air guard is just giving you that time that's the difference maker that time of the college so with the GI bill one of the big benefits that a lot of people have when they commit to hey I'm going to do 20 years right so if I join and I'm going to do 20 years and I know I'm getting that GI bill but if I'm doing 20 years I'm going to retire I'm not interested in going to college getting a degree all that stuff possibly so I want to pass that on to my kids or my spouse so that's one of the benefits of the GI bill interactive duty do you get that same opportunity in the guard I know you had just hit on you know you have to serve a certain amount of time to get the post 9 11 can you pass that on to your kids or spouse while you're in the guard so the Montgomery GI bill you cannot the post 9 11 GI bill you can so if you if somebody has the post 9 11 GI bill whether they've earned that through activated time in the air guard like like deployments like we were talking about or their palace chase palace front coming from active duty right they just need to transfer it over to their their spouse or family member you do incur a four-year service commitment thereafter so so a lot of times what what active duty members run into is like well I want to transfer it to my spouse or my kid but I didn't have that kid when I was or spouse when I was in right so by joining the guard you can still have that you can join the guard transfer it over incur that for your service commitment complete it and be able to do that so that's another thing about that so like technically I could shave my beard and cut my hair join the guard and if we have a kid I could transfer it if I commit for four more years there you go so there's always a backup plan oh yeah because the same way with active duty you have to in order to transfer it to your spouse you have to do that re-enlistment commitment and say I'm going to serve this much longer because you guys are going to extend this benefit to my my child or my wife so that's good to know that the international guard offers that same opportunity as well so being a recruiter I'm sure you get tons of questions about college education tuition is there anything else that you can think about or that you want to shed some light on or share that might help people out because I know this is probably one of the biggest subjects that you get asked about because this is a big reason why so many people join the military in the first place yeah the main thing I want to highlight is experience I think that's what we offer a college student that college and of itself won't get you right you have to think there's there's so many people getting college degrees now so one when you do apply for that first job in that field that you've studied for the last four years in college how do you differentiate yourself from every other applicant that has the same exact degree as you right so experience in the airguard is a great way to differentiate yourself and get that job much like you mentioned the veteran preference there's a there's a you know an unconscious veteran preference because of the work ethic the discipline and that experience that you've proven by by being a member of the airguard right and then one more you know to add to that if you're already getting legit experience in the medical field it field law enforcement field before you apply for that job but while you're in college in the airguard come on that's a that's a winning combination so that's that's why I encourage you know those clever college students to really think about it it's worth your your your one week in a month to do this so you're the person who gets that job when you apply the first time that's awesome it's uh it's almost like you're the like when you go to look up a restaurant to eat at and you look at the reviews right and if there's no reviews you're like what kind of sketchy restaurant is this you have no reviews right but like that's kind of what it is like a company is more likely to want to hire you possibly if they're like well you already have experience right like you know it's it's like well yeah you have a building and you say you're a restaurant like that's your degree but like you have the experience like have people been able to vouch for you and having that job experience is kind of a good way to yeah get that you're not just getting the education aspect but having that experience to that proof that you can fulfill that job so college and tuition that's a huge aspect of why people join the military I think we hit a lot of key subjects if you guys have any other questions about college or tuition or anything like that be sure to leave them down below we'll be trying to give some more videos in the future if tech sergeant costa is willing to work with us again or if any other recruiters out there are willing to make videos on education aspects if we have anything that went unanswered in this video but go ahead and reintroduce yourself who you are how people can contact you or if they're interested in joining the international guard in another state outside of California where they can go for that yeah thank you airman vision for this opportunity I love that we can put out this information everybody's they make the best choice for them if you've got any more questions about the California air guard feel free to send me a text or give me a call my phone number is 805-415-7269 again that's 805-415-7269 and if you're not looking at California you know feel free to just google your state air guard so Florida Air National Guard or Georgia Air National Guard is just some examples or look at our national website which is goang.com goang.com thank you