I have been exploring training options as well. I am also former military with GI Bill benefits.
I was excited when I heard that Post 9/11 would pay for full flight training if you go thru a college program. However, when I began researching I found this to be either quite untrue or rather impractical.
The reason being is that the VA limits the type of training you can do to Part 141 approved schools, caps how many hours you can log in training to the bare minimum (hence most will end up paying out of pocket to complete the practical number of hours required to obtain certification - possibly thousands of dollars), and also limits you to single engine only training.
Of greater concern is that when I began to research schools approved for VA funding, I realized they were more or less cheating the system by over charging for the flight training. Furthermore, of the schools I looked into that offered Yellow Ribbon, I learned that the VA capped the aviation Yellow Ribbon programs at 10k per year. Lastly, because it is a VA program, you pay examiner fees and tests separately, something many schools include in their quote (at least the exams).
So, take for example Liberty College, which advertises you can complete the degree online and choose a partner school for the flight training. As a private institution they max your TA annual funding for tuition, then you use Yellow Ribbon to pay the flight training fees (listed as lab fees). Sounds reasonable in that they tell you that you will not incur out of pocket expenses. However, when I added up the lab fees, it came to approximately $56k. That is for PPL, CSEL, and IR - bare minimum hours, with none of the exams or check ride fees included. That is extremely expensive for that training. When I spoke to some of the partner schools, they all claimed this was their normal fees if I mentioned Liberty. However, if you make separate inquiries, or have them email you course brochures, you will find those same schools often offer the training much cheaper when not associated with Liberty College. One school in Arizona offered a CMEL package that also included Instructor quals for just slightly more when not associated with the Liberty package. When I started pressing that school, they disclosed that the college fees are so high because they are set at the maximum the VA will pay for flight training.
Furthermore, for those that do not take issue with this, with further investigation you discover that because Yellow Ribbon is capped at 10k per year (meaning you get 20k credit towards the flight training per annum), you discover that for bare minimum training to not be out of pocket {tho note you will likely be required to pay extra flight hours regardless}, you would need to complete the training over a period in excess of two academic years.
Mind you, you would still need to pay out of pocket for CMEL and any desired instructor quals.
Also of note is that the school tells you that you can use additional VA funding per aviation program under the Post 9/11 program. In that, the VA will pay something like 21K (I forgot the exact number) per approved flight program. However, you often cannot stack benefits, and if you use this, they debit you 12 months worth of education benefits. Even VA benefits for exams will debit from total allowance; some a full year worth of benefits.
So for me, my goal was to complete the training in a year or less. Had I opted to go thru Liberty, after one year of college and flight school, I would still owe approx $35k for flight training, would have spent approx $5k in exams, check ride fees, and extra flight hours to actually pass the courses. Then if I wanted MEL rating as well, I would have had to fork over another several thousand dollars. And Instructor quals would easily be another 20K or more. In one year of flight training thru the college program, I would still be required to fund an additional $40k plus in flight training (not including Instructor Quals) to get where I want to be. That is more than some of the small aviation clubs would charge for all the flight training required to earn PPL, CMEL, and IR...and you wouldn't be bogged down by college classes.
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Lets compare this to the ATP Program, which most will agree is astronomically expensive. With the ATP program, for $65k (or $75K to get an additional 80 hours ME) you get your PPL, CMEL, IR, CFI, CFII, and MEI. And you earn it all in six months. should you want to be more frugal, or don't mind a less than break-neck-speed course, there are countless threads on obtaining training thru local FBOs or flight clubs - for muuuuuuucccccch cheaper. But using ATP for the comparison since it is known to be one of the more expensive options, after a year of college program flight school you can still owe $40'ish thousand to complete training if paying the remainder out of pocket for a quick complete. That means that for $25 more, you get CFI, CFII, and MEI (which consequently is ball park for what many training schools would charge for those certs anyway). If that means you break even with ATP, then one can easily deduce that you wasted a LOT of money in comparison to cheaper options.
The one perk of doing a college program is that you will get a housing allowance while doing a full course load, which depending on where you live will be an extra (ex) $500-$1500 per month, and this of course does help offset costs.
For me, currently in my mid-30s, I don't want to spend a year and a half, or more, in training via a conventional 61,141 school, and certainly don't want to spend 2.5-3 years in a college flight program only to still require additional training. As I have already earned my bachelors, and my MA is half complete, I personally decided against the college program route. I will do ATP. Then if I really want to make myself more marketable, I will use VA benefits for a type rating and ATP/CTP.
Simply, if you want to explore college program options, make sure you really investigate the funding options with whatever college you are looking at to find out how much their tuition fees will eat into your annual benefit, if they are Yellow Ribbon, what they have their flight training lab fees set at, and if you were to use only tuition and yellow ribbon funding, how long the program will take to complete.
Lastly, I know that formal training is expensive; quite a bitter pill to swallow. It is my hope that I will get thru training, log hours and gain experience as a CFI, then get picked up for one of the gigs in AFG making big bucks flying ISR. I am hoping to erase the debt this way, and have already begun networking to help make this happen when the time comes. I only mention this because such options are often more palpable as a former mil guy, wanted to make you aware these gigs are out there, and furthermore you may already have the contacts to get your foot in the door. Minimum hours for a SIC job is as low as 1k TT hours (lots of which will need to be ME and PIC).
With whatever you choose, I wish you and your family the best~
Sorry for any grammatical errors or incoherent thoughts. It is 3:30 am and I was just about to head to bed when I saw this. Wanted to reply before calling it a night.