Pay & benefits, by the numbers

Retired pay is calculated as 2.5% × years of service × the average of your highest 36 months of base pay ("High-3"). Twenty years yields 50% of that High-3 average; thirty years yields 75%. (Under the newer Blended Retirement System the multiplier is 2.0%, traded for TSP matching.)

Because the formula is the same for everyone, the difference between an officer and a senior enlisted pension comes down to base pay. Consider a prior-enlisted service member who commissioned and can retire at 20 years as an O-3E versus staying enlisted and retiring as an E-7:

• E-7 at 20 years: High-3 around $5,800–$6,000/mo → ~50% → roughly $3,000/month for life.
• O-3E at 20 years: High-3 around $9,000–$9,500/mo → ~50% → roughly $4,600–$4,800/month for life.

That's on the order of $1,600–$1,800 more every month — well over $20,000 a year, indexed to inflation, potentially for decades. It's a vivid illustration of why even a late commission (and the O-3E pay that prior enlisted service unlocks) can dramatically change lifetime earnings.

Which system you're under changes the math. Anyone who joined on or after 1 January 2018 is in the Blended Retirement System (BRS); those who joined earlier are generally under the legacy "High-3" system.

• Legacy High-3: pension = 2.5% × years × High-3 → 50% at 20 years. No government TSP match. Bigger check, but only if you stay to 20.
• BRS: pension multiplier drops to 2.0% → 40% at 20 years — but you also get up to 5% government TSP matching, mid-career continuation pay, and a portable account even if you separate before 20.

So a 20-year retiree's pension is about 20% smaller under BRS (40% vs. 50% of High-3), with the matched TSP intended to help close the gap — and to give the roughly 80% who don't reach 20 years something to take with them.

The Coast Guard's guarantee (Title 14)

The Coast Guard runs under Title 14, not Title 10, and it is unusually protective of mid-career officers. Under 14 U.S.C. §2145, a regular lieutenant commander (O-4) — or commander (O-5) — who is twice passed over for promotion and is not yet retirement-eligible is retained on active duty and retired upon completing 20 years of active service (unless removed earlier). In other words, a twice-passed-over Coast Guard O-4 is effectively guaranteed a 20-year retirement.

How Title 10 differs

Under Title 10 (10 U.S.C. §632), a DoD regular O-4 twice non-selected for O-5 is discharged or retired — those already retirement-eligible retire, but others are separated unless chosen for selective continuation or protected by the 18-year sanctuary. So the DoD path to "stay to 20" is real but conditional, whereas Title 14 spells out the retain-to-20 result for the Coast Guard.

Who qualifies — and when

Eligibility turns on your component and time served. The current VA thresholds:

• Active duty: currently-serving members generally qualify after 90 continuous days of active service. (Discharged veterans qualify by service-era minimums — often 24 continuous months for post-1980 service, or less if discharged for a service-connected disability.)
• National Guard: qualify with 90 days of active-duty (Title 10) service; or 90 days of active service that included 30 consecutive days under Title 32; or 6 creditable years in the Guard (still serving, or honorably discharged/retired).
• Selected Reserve: qualify with 90 days of active-duty service; or 6 creditable years in the Selected Reserve (still serving, or honorably discharged/retired).

Guard and Reserve members activated to active duty under Title 10 count that active time the same as active-duty members. Surviving spouses may also qualify in certain cases (for example, those receiving VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation).

Who qualifies

To use it yourself, you generally must have: been a Texas resident / entered service in Texas; served at least 181 days of active duty (excluding training); received an honorable discharge; and currently reside in Texas. One condition trips people up: you must first use your federal GI Bill tuition benefits (or not be eligible for them) — Hazlewood then covers the remaining tuition and fees. In practice it stacks after the Post-9/11 GI Bill, picking up once those tuition benefits run out.

The Legacy Program — pass it to your child

This is what makes Hazlewood extraordinary: a veteran can assign their unused hours (of the 150) to one child who is a Texas resident and 25 or younger on the first day of the term. The child draws from the same 150-hour pool, and unused hours can be reassigned to another child. Separately, spouses and children of veterans who died in service, are MIA, or are 100% service-disabled may receive their own 150-hour exemption.

It stacks with Chapter 35 (DEA) for dependents

Here's a powerful combination for military families. Chapter 35 — the VA's Survivors' & Dependents' Educational Assistance (DEA) program — supports the spouse and children of a service member who died in the line of duty or from a service-connected condition, or who is permanently and totally (100%) disabled from one. DEA pays a flat monthly allowance to the student (about $1,574/month full-time in 2025–26) rather than tuition to the school. Because Hazlewood only requires you to first use tuition-only federal benefits, and DEA is not tuition-only, the two don't conflict: a Texas dependent who qualifies for both can use Hazlewood to erase tuition and fees and draw the Chapter 35 monthly stipend at the same time. (The tuition-paying Post-9/11 GI Bill, by contrast, must be applied first, with Hazlewood covering whatever tuition is left.) The qualifying veteran categories overlap heavily — killed in service, MIA, or 100% service-disabled — so many of the same dependents are eligible for both.