Chapter 31 Veterans Readiness & Employment (VRE) Program

UCSD does not have any part in the approval process for VRE.

The Chapter 31 Veterans Readiness and Employment program (formerly known as Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment) is designed to help disabled veterans find employment, which sometimes includes obtaining a degree in the desired field. Please reach out to the VRE office (in the San Diego Regional VA building) at VBASDC@va.gov or (619) 400-5381 with inquiries or apply online. 

Please note that it can take many months to be approved for the Chapter 31 VRE program, which may not fit with your admission timeline if you are accepted to a UCSD degree program.

Our office is not qualified to complete degree plans for Chapter 31 VRE purposes. You can contact your College advising office or graduate program academic advising office for assistance with the VRE degree plan once you are admitted to UCSD. UCSD advisors are not available to complete education plans prior to admission.

Before you are admitted, you can find general information about degree requirements in the UCSD General Catalog and  estimated cost information on this UCSD Office of the Registrar website or on this UCSD Financial Aid and Scholarships Office website.

If you intend to use the Chapter 31 VRE Benefit at UCSD, please email your PID (student ID number) and the full name and email address of your VRE counselor to vao@ucsd.edu. If your VRE counselor needs specific "School Certifying Official" information, please let us know.

Your Chapter 31 VRE counselor must provide authorization documentation to UCSD in order for us to certify your enrollment. Please make sure to check in with your VRE counselor after each quarter to ensure your authorization paperwork is up to date. If you are re-assigned to a different VRE counselor, please email vao@ucsd.edu to let us know.

Chapter 31 VRE provides a tuition and registration fees payment, an allowance for housing, and parking permit if authorized by your VRE counselor.

The Chapter 31 VRE program contends that you have adequate health care coverage through the Department of Veterans Affairs, and therefore does NOT cover the waivable UC Student Health Insurance Plan fee. If you do not wish to pay the UC SHIP fee out of pocket each quarter, please coordinate a waiver with Student Health Services.

Your Chapter 31 VRE counselor must approve any quarters ahead of time by providing our office with a "Tungsten Network Purchase Order" number (authorization).

UCSD can only certify courses to the VA that help with your degree progress, and therefore uses an eForm system so that your courses can be reviewed and approved by your academic advisors before our office certifies your enrollment to the VA. A VA Enrollment Verification eForm (VA-eForm) must be completed for each quarter that you would like to use your federal benefit. 

The VA-eForm is routed to your major/ minor/ college/graduate department advising offices so they can verify that your enrollment counts toward your degree/ graduation requirements. The VA-eForm is then routed to us for final approval and certification with the VA. If your major or minor does not auto-populate on the VA-eForm, please contact vao@ucsd.edu for assistance.

You will receive email notifications about the status of the VA-eForm at each step to track your VA-eForm progress. If you see that your VA-eForm has paused at a certain office, please email vao@ucsd.edu so we can investigate.

Once we have certified your eForm courses with the VA, you’ll receive your stipend via direct deposit in 2-4 weeks or the first of the month, depending on the date of certification.

If your schedule changes after submitting your "initial" VA-eForm for a given quarter, please submit a "revised" VA-eForm listing your entire new schedule so that we can update the VA.