 I'm talking about this money doesn't just buy you a better life better food better cars better education also makes you a better person. Hey guys my name is Boris I'm a physician assistant and this video is about how I got $200,000 from the government in order to pay for my schooling for my post back for my PA school for my housing and for my living expenses during post back NPA school and I was able to graduate as a physician assistant completely debt free that sounds good to you stay tuned watch the rest of the video. Okay so how did I get the GI bill the US government to pay for $200,000 worth of education so worth of tuition fees living expenses all of that how did I make that happen using the post 9-11 GI bill I'm going to share my screen and show you exactly how I did it okay so I actually kind of prefabricated this spreadsheet already but I'm going to put these numbers in new so that you could see exactly how I got to that number of $200,000 provided by the GI bill for my post back and for my PA school education so I ended up graduating as a physician assistant completely debt free okay so the first thing I'm going to do because the first thing that I did was my post back at Cornell University so because this was in 2017 at this point that's like five six years ago using Cornell's current tuition which I think is like 70 or even $80,000 I'm not sure would not be accurate so I actually found this from you know news.cornell.edu so it's definitely a reputable source and in 2017 the tuition was as you can see $52,600 that's just tuition that's not books that's not fees that's not living expenses housing gas none of that it's straight up just tuition so let's populate that so tuition post back it was just those two semesters it was about $52,000 for that year for those two semesters okay so that's what this is next I'm going to do I'm just going to do uh tuition first right so if you go to any PA programs website you should be able to find the cost to attend the whole program so the problem with this is a lot of the cost is estimated so here you can see the grand total for attending LeMoyne where I went physician assistant program is about $162,000 $167,000 for the two years it's a 24 month program the reason this is not necessarily accurate is it includes all kinds of other fees that are estimates and also things that may or may not be paid by you so for instance the pants is about $500 it's the exam that you have to take after graduating from PA school in order to get your license assuming you pass so the GI bill actually paid for that for me which is awesome but people who don't have the GI bill you know you'd be paying for that state licensing fees depending on the state and also the people that you work for your employer if you get a job right out of school they might pay this for you your DEA license in order to prescribe medications again your employer might pay that for you mine certainly did um AAPA membership fees NYSSPA that's the New York State PA Association all things that you should be a member of if you work in New York State but again your employer might be paying those things so either way the point here is this $167,000 is not necessarily accurate so I am only going to go based on these two things tuition fall spring and summer the whole year and here fall spring and summer for year one and for year two so as you can see here about $46,000 per year $47,000 per year for the tuition so I'm going only off of that so for PA school tuition year one it said $46,000 tuition year two $47,000 now other stuff here you could see in the breakdown books equipment room and board you know utilities personal transportation a computer you know $1500 is definitely not what my computer cost that I went through PA school with it was much cheaper than that parking health insurance you know all this stuff that may or may not apply to you so what I'm going to do as far as living expenses is much simpler than this and I'll show you exactly how all right so our spreadsheet so far just has tuition books and supplies the GI bill gave I want to say about a thousand bucks for the year so a thousand bucks for a post back and $2,000 for PA school because one year here and two years there so it was about a thousand dollars a year that the GI bill gave you for books and supplies now as far as all the miscellaneous ancillary expenses those are hard to calculate because they're so different but what I'm going to do is calculate just based on the housing allowance so you may or may not know the post 9-11 GI bill pays for your tuition in full and it also gives you a housing allowance so the way you calculate that is you go right here to the defense travel website and you are you calculate the housing allowance that you get per month depending on the area that you live in so for instance I'm going to do PA school first and I went to PA school in 2019 and 2020 and 2021 I guess and I know that the zip code around Syracuse is this and when you use the post 9-11 GI bill you actually get E5 basic housing allowance with dependents so if you see that and you allow pop-ups you see right here all right so for Syracuse for 2019 what I actually received was 1500 and 15 dollars per month for so let's just say it's about the same for both years I think it goes up every year a little bit but not all that much so my housing allowance for the 24 months of the program was equals 24 times about you know 1500 a month give or take right so about 36 000 during my PA school time the GI bill paid me that for the housing allowance which of course I used for housing but also for food for transportation for everything else I basically lived off of that 1500 dollars per month plus my savings that I had from the military now because oops I actually need to look up the zip code for Ithaca because my post back was at Cornell University that was in Ithaca New York which has a totally different cost of living and because of that it has a totally different basic allowance for housing so I'm going to say Ithaca New York zip code and you can do this with anywhere in the world that you have school right so if you happen to have school in like Los Angeles New York City your basic allowance for housing is going to be much much higher than what I got in Syracuse so 14853 let's go with that right so 14853 and this was actually in 2017 that I went to post back so it might be a little lower and you'll see right here 1692 is about what I got per month for housing allowance in Ithaca so this is going to be equals and it was only nine months because it was just two semesters so nine months I think it might have even been less than that because Christmas break didn't count so I want to say like eight months right eight months times about 1700 bucks per month is what I received so based on these calculations you see that my post back tuition was about $52,000 my PA school tuition total was a little over $90,000 books and supplies were about a thousand dollars a year and then my housing allowance total during my two semesters of post back was about $13,000 and then my housing allowance total during the two years of PA school was $36,000 of course I supplemented that a little bit with my savings that I saved up during the military because it's kind of difficult to live on this housing allowance but that's not to say that it's not a tremendously generous benefit and I super appreciated the VA paying for me to go to school and also to live and have housing so the way we're going to calculate this is equals some parentheses all of this good stuff right here that gives us a grand total of $197,600 let's bold that for emphasis look at that almost $200,000 that the Department of Veterans Affairs the VA the post 9-11 GI bill in addition to the yellow ribbon program paid in order for me to go to school to go to post back to get my GPA up in order to get into PA school and then finally to get through PA school completely debt free so let me actually stop sharing my screen now that we have this uh this figure of about $200,000 a year that I ended up getting from the GI bill okay now you can see my face all right so just a couple more things here because if you are a veteran you might be thinking wow that is absolutely amazing I want the GI bill to pay $200,000 for my schooling in order for me to graduate debt free with a great career that pays good money and not have to pay back student loans right so first off I'm going to talk to the veterans the vets out there who want to use their GI bill very very good benefit definitely tremendous but one thing I want you to think about and one thing that is not talked about frequently enough is this if you are using your GI bill and you do not graduate or even if you fail a class you have to pay that money back okay that's something that a lot of people don't think about when they're signing up for classes right you sign up for a class you think I'm going to pass this class you don't think I'm going to fail this class but it's something that you need to keep in consideration that if you fail a class the GI bill is not going to pay for that they're going to make you pay them back if you fail out of the whole program for instance if I had failed out of the PA program I would have had to pay all of that money back if I would have failed classes in my post back I would have had to pay all of that money back so worst case scenario let's say I get into PA school I'm stoked I want to be a PA it's awesome I've been working for 10 years in my life to finally get here and then I fail out of the program well not only am I now not a PA I also have to pay the government all that money back that they paid for me to try to go to PA school and not only that but I'm not a PA so I'm not making any money how am I supposed to pay $200,000 back to the government and if you know anything about the government they're very slow to give you money and they're very very fast to garnish your wages or any possible way you have of making money and take that back so the government takes money much faster than it doles money out trust me you know being in the military being a veteran relying on the VA at some point in my life I know that fact the government does not like to give out money and they do very efficiently take money from you so careful so basically just kind of a message of warning I guess if you are a veteran you're going to use your GI bill understand that if for whatever reason any reason whatsoever you fail out of whatever program you're doing you're paying all that money back okay so that's one now talking to the civilians out there that are not veterans or maybe not veterans yet uh one to say don't be jealous of veterans with their GI bill because if they happen to you know fail out of the program they're paying all that money back so it's not exactly you know carte blanche to do whatever you want with education you got to pass you got to do well so that's one two don't be jealous of veterans because yes it is a tremendously generous benefit and I know all veterans really appreciate the post 9-11 GI bill so that we can go to school for free and graduate debt free but it's not exactly free man I mean we gave up years of our lives to get this benefit and some veterans were much less lucky than I was and they give up a whole whole lot more than just a few years of their life some people gave up limbs arms legs hands feet some people gave up you know their mental health PTSD anxiety some people gave up you know other health areas I think every veteran has something wrong with their health due to their service you know so yeah the GI bill is tremendous but it's not free we paid for it in years at the very best and at worst with you know our lives or somebody's life or our injuries or our health be it physical or mental or both okay so that's just a message to anybody who might think like oh why do veterans get this benefit I think as a veteran and also now as a taxpayer it's the least we can do it's the least we can do for people who put their life on the line for their country for our freedoms the GI bill letting people get ahead in life get educated is the least we can do for our veterans okay so yeah that's one thing also to the civilians watching this who might think like man I do not want to pay you know thousands and thousands of dollars and graduate with a hundred two hundred three hundred five hundred thousand dollars in debt and this GI bill thing sounds amazing and the GI bill is not the only way to get the government to pay for your schooling if you give them some time you know the VA has options ROTC has options the GI bill of course if you enlist or even if you go in as an officer and then you get out of the military this is what I used that's always an option so if you happen to be a civilian and this sounds good to you you know while you're in school only focusing on academics not being financially tremendously stressed but only having to focus on academics and if you pass you graduate debt free you know so if that sounds good to you the military GI bill other things in the military that can pay for schooling are tremendously good options and I actually have a whole video I made about that I'm going to link right here I'm sorry my friends here are going to make me some dinner so sorry that dang just distracted me but anyway and also just a little rant about tuition prices like man they're going up like crazy like the cost of school now is absolutely freaking ludicrous and if I was advising any young person I would say definitely get on this path man try to get the government try to get some way to someone to have somebody pay for school whether it's an academic or an athletic scholarship if those things are not an option for you like they are not for most people the military option the GI bill anything like that is a great great option and if anyone has questions about that post that below and I will be happy to answer those all right guys so I hope you enjoyed the video how I got $200,000 from the government to pay for my post back and also my PA school and graduated debt free