Congressman Pappas, Ranking Members Takano & Blumenthal Demand Secretary Collins Address VA Education and Housing Benefit Payment Delays

Ranking Member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity, Chris Pappas (NH-01), House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano (CA-41), and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (CT) sent a letter addressed to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins urging him to address VA’s failure to pay out required education benefits to tens of thousands of veterans, their families, and survivors. 

“With the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Benefits Administration offices once again open and funded, we write to express alarm about VA failing to pay out required education benefits to thousands of veterans, their families, and survivors,” wrote the lawmakers. 

Their letter notes that in August 2025, Congress was initially informed that 750 individuals were experiencing payment delays. Recent reporting indicates that “VA recently shared with schools that there are now 75,000 Dependent Educational Assistance (DEA) beneficiaries impacted by delayed payments.” This reporting echoes the information congressional offices are receiving directly from veterans, families, and schools. 

“These payment failures are not merely a bureaucratic inconvenience; they are a direct failure to uphold the sacred promises made to those who served our country,” continued the lawmakers. “The fact that payments for essential housing and tuition benefits have been delayed for nearly four months, forcing student veterans and survivors into financial instability and uncertainty as they began a new academic term, is simply unacceptable.”

The lawmakers demanded an immediate resolution to these issues and urged Secretary Collins to provide his “overdue answer to the questions posed in our October 9th, 2025, letter” by December 3rd, 2025, and to immediately share an “action plan from VA detailing the scope of those impacted, how VA is going to make them whole, timeline for a resolution of both the 75,000-case backlog for Chapter 35 and delayed Post-9/11 GI Bill payments, and how VA will be preventing any recurrence of this failure in the future.”

Click here to read the full letter.