The records for hundreds of military veterans attending colleges in Ohio and West Virginia are temporarily lost, disrupting the payment of their benefits used for their college tuition, housing and books expenses.

The discovery that the records were lost while being electronically transferred to Missouri from New York, sent Ohio’s public and private colleges scrambling on Friday to identify affected students receiving Post 9/11 G.I. Bill education benefits and offer them temporary aid while the the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs works to correct the problem.

The number of military veterans impacted remains in question. The Ohio Department of Veterans Services said the glitch could affect as many as 22,000 veterans and their family members attending schools statewide. The federal agency said later Friday afternoon the number is about 300 veterans in Ohio and West Virginia, and that the issue should be corrected and benefits made available within the next 10 days.

“VA is working to expedite the processing for all veterans affected,” said a VA spokesman Randy Noller. “No claims from any veterans have been lost.”

The VA was in the process of realigning one of its four Education Regional Processing Offices moving its Ohio and West Virginia claims work to St. Louis from Buffalo when it reviewed 10,500 documents and found a system programming error occurred that affected potentially 300, Noller said.

On Friday, Gov. John R. Kasich and Ohio Chancellor Jim Petro asked the state’s public and private colleges and universities to proactively identify the affected students and hold them financially harmless until the issue is resolved. The Ohio Board of Regents has asked all schools to report the number of affected students to them by Tuesday.

“We want students to be enrolled and continue to be enrolled,” said Kim Norris, spokeswoman for the Ohio Board of Regents. “This is certainly the last thing they need after having served our country.”

“We have thousands of veterans that are in school all across Ohio, and we want to make sure they don’t suffer as a result of this,” said Mike McKinney, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Veterans Services.

Hundreds of area students impacted

Hundreds of area military veteran students could be impacted, with Wright State University and Clark State Community College both estimating 90 and the University of Cincinnati at least 66.

Bowling Green State University was the first Ohio school to report its impact. The vast majority of its 284 student military veterans might not receive their basic monthly housing allowance or semester book stipends on time, according to a letter President Mary Ellen Mazey sent to Kasich.

“Technical problems the federal government is currently facing puts these young men and women in the unenviable position where they don’t know how they’ll pay for college, buy books or keep a roof over their heads,” Kasich said.

Records were lost for veterans “with pending enrollments received between July 24 and Aug. 9,” according to Petro. The records were for veterans’ eligibility certifications.

“The bottom line is we are talking about the VA, the federal government, so the money will be forthcoming,” McKinney said. “No school or no landlord for that matter should think they’re not going to get their money. But at this point, it could be delayed.”

Mazey told Kasich veterans can expect delays of “weeks or months” in receiving their benefits. In an “unprecedented step,” she said Bowling Green is offering loans to veterans to cover housing and books. “We simply do not have the resources to maintain this type of assistance for more than a month or two,” she said.

The problems come at a time when Bowling Green and the University of Toledo began enforcing policies last week to reject any student not in good financial standing or who lack payment plans for overdue bills before fall classes started. It meant students would not be able to take any classes and lose dormitory rooms until they made good on their bills or started a payment plan.

Wright State University is offering affected veterans $500 loans loaded on their university ID cards for book purchases — addressing a primary concern among the students. The university is also eliminating late fees for tuition payments for those veterans, said Marian Brainerd, university registrar. Veterans can receive the loan by calling (937) 775-5550 or emailing veteransaffairs@wright.edu.

Other area universities have safeguards in place to protect veterans, who must be certified every semester and who often experience delays in their payments.

“To be as flexible as we possibly can with our veterans students, we’ve got mechanisms in place to flag students as veterans so if there are issues with timely payments of things, we don’t block them from enrolling in courses,” said University of Cincinnati spokesman Greg Hand.

Sinclair Community College has heard from students who are frustrated, but the college has “not heard from a single student who cannot enroll” because of the delays, said spokesman Adam Murka.

Norris said concerned veterans can contact their college or university, call (800) AFFORD-IT or (888) GI-Bill-1.