Military Kids Fly Free with Student Travel Program
Does your child attend school in the U.S. while the rest of the family is stationed overseas? If so, make sure to utilize the annual Dependent Student Travel program!
Choosing to stay behind in the U.S. for high school or college is a difficult decision for many students who are in families serving overseas. While military kids have overcome obstacles of relocation often too many times to count, it is usually as a family unit.
Many students find the transition to college a challenge. Being homesick is not unusual for students just starting their college journey. College is the first time being away from the only home they’ve known for many students.
This transition is increasingly hard for those military kids living on a different continent than their family. For the military dependent student, feelings of homesickness is not necessarily for a location. It is for their family, separated by a permanent overseas assignment.
Dependent Student Travel program provides a way to get home
Thankfully, the Joint Travel Regulations provides an option for our students to come home! Military kids who attend school in the U.S., while the rest of their family is stationed overseas, have a way to travel to family for free each year. The Dependent Student Travel Program allows these students to visit their family overseas (between October 1 and September 30) for FREE.
To be eligible for the Dependent Student Travel Program, your child must meet the following requirements:
- Your child must be an unmarried dependent child who is under 23.
- Your child must be a student formally attending one of the following:
- 9-12 grade at a public or private school
- an undergraduate college
- a full-time graduate education
- a full-time vocational program at a postsecondary vocational institution
Unfortunately your student will not be able to book this travel himself or herself. In order to utilize this benefit, the Dependent Student Travel program requires the military parent arrange the transportation through his or her overseas command.
Be sure to read all of the information about the Dependent Student Travel program, paragraph 050816, in the most recent Joint Travel Regulations (updated on December 1, 2019).
Whether you choose for your student utilizes the program for Christmas break, Spring break or summer vacation, sometimes just knowing they will get to be together with the ones they love is a boost to their spirit!
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