#VMSDEP

[spec-squared]

Okay so I don't normally post about this kinda stuff, but this is important and I need to talk about it.

"Currently, the kids of veterans who are more than 90% permanently disabled can have their tuition waived for up to eight semesters at a public college or university in Virginia."

The program explained above is called the Virginia Military Survivors Dependents Education Program (VMSDEP). I was a recipient up until just a couple weeks ago, because I finished up my eighth semester of college and will be graduating soon.

Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin just gutted funding for this program. Now there are going to be thousands of children and young adults who will either lose access to higher education entirely, or they will be forced to go into tens of thousands of dollars of debt to pursue it.

Now, I had a very long-winded paragraph typed out, giving you my sob story about how my father died due to military service-related injuries and that my Ma had to jump through hoops with the USDVA for a year so that I would be granted eligibility. It was meticulously worded so that you, the reader, would sympathize with me and understand why this program is so important to me and many other Virginians like me. Unfortunately, I'm on mobile and accidentally swiped my thumb the wrong way, causing the whole thing to be deleted, and I am too emotionally exhausted to write all that out again.

TL;DR - this is EXTREMELY bad for a LOT of people, and if you live in Virginia, I am BEGGING you to contact our local representatives and tell them that they need to reinstate funding for VMSDEP, and PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, VOTE BLUE.