Active-duty military parents who live off-post at certain installations will soon be able to enroll their children in on-post schools operated by the Defense Department.

Under the program, children of “full-time, active-duty” service members who live within the continental United States “may enroll in a covered [Department of Defense Education Activity] school at the military installation to which the member is assigned, on a space-available basis,” even when the service member lives off-post, according to a provision in the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. 

Prior to the provision in the NDAA, children of service members had to live in permanent housing on post to be eligible for tuition-free enrollment, according to a Military OneSource webpage.

The program applies to children of service members who live within the continental United States. DoD’s Domestic Dependent Elementary and Secondary Schools program operates 53 schools across seven states, Guam and one virtual school and enrolls approximately 22,000 students, according to a Congressional Research Service primer updated December 2024.

A pilot version of the program began in 2022 across four installations, including Fort Jackson, South Carolina, according to a Military Times article on the program.

“The Department of Defense long has recognized the significance of family readiness and its impact on overall military readiness, performance, retention and recruitment,” Brian Perry, the Department of Defense Education Activity community superintendent who oversees schools on Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Fort Stewart, Georgia, and Laurel Bay, South Carolina, said when Fort Jackson became part of the pilot program. “Quality education is both a stabilizing influence in the lives of children and their families and an overall element in the readiness, retention and morale of America’s force.”

Service officials and officials from the Department of Defense Education Activity will decide which installations will take part in the program as it continues.

Defense officials are due to brief the House and Senate Armed Services Committees by April 1 on which installations will participate in the program and the number of students participating in the program.