10 U.S.C. § 16131a — Accelerated payment of educational assistance

(a) The educational assistance allowance payable under section 16131 to an eligible person described in subsection (b) can, if that person chooses, be paid on an accelerated basis (a lump sum instead of monthly payments) following the rules in this section.

(b) A person is eligible for this if they qualify for educational assistance under this chapter and are: enrolled in an approved program lasting two years or less that does not lead to an associate, bachelor's, master's, or other degree (subject to the cap in subsection (g)); and charged tuition and fees that, divided by the months in the enrollment period, come to more than 200% of the normal monthly rate^* they'd otherwise get under section 16131.

(c)
(1) The accelerated payment equals whichever is smaller: 60% of the program's "established charges," or the total amount of benefit the person still has left under this chapter.
(2)(A) "Established charges" normally means the actual tuition and fees (as VA regulations define them) that a similarly situated person not eligible for this chapter's benefits would pay^* for the program — measured as the charge for a full term, quarter, or semester if the program runs that way, or the charge for the whole program if it doesn't. (B) "Established charges" never includes fees for buying a vehicle.
(3) The school must certify to the VA Secretary what the established charges actually are.

(d) The accelerated payment must go out no later than the end of the month after the VA Secretary receives the school's certification of the person's enrollment and the program's established charges.

(e)
(1) Except as paragraph (2) says, each accelerated payment uses up the person's entitlement at a rate found by dividing the payment amount by the full-time monthly rate that applied at the start of the enrollment period.
(2) If the monthly rate goes up during the enrollment period, the entitlement charge gets split proportionally between the time covered by the old rate and the time covered by the new rate, following VA regulations.

(f) The VA Secretary must write regulations to run this section, covering how to request, issue, deliver, certify receipt and use of, and recover overpayments of, an accelerated payment — and may borrow relevant pieces of the regulations for the similar program under section 3014A of title 38.

(g) Total accelerated payments under this section, across everyone using the two-year-or-less program described in subsection (b)(1), cannot exceed $4,000,000 in any fiscal year.