Veterans Employment: VA Should Address Human Capital Needs and Other Issues in High-Tech Training
Fast Facts
In 2019, VA launched a 5-year pilot program to train veterans to work in high-tech fields. In 2022, we found VA didn’t follow leading practices for pilot design.
Our new review found other weaknesses, such as no plan for evaluating how well the pilot worked. And although veterans reported problems via an online portal, VA doesn’t have a plan to review this feedback to improve the program. VA also doesn’t have a systematic way to identify some types of possible overpayments to training providers.
After the pilot ended in 2024, Congress enacted a new program, which VA is planning to implement.
Our recommendations would help improve the new effort.
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Highlights
What GAO Found
The Veteran Employment Through Technology Education Courses (VET TEC) program administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides financial support to veterans enrolled in high-tech programs through eligible training providers. VA data show more than 20,300 veteran enrollments during the 5-year VET TEC pilot, which began in April 2019. VA reported spending nearly $262 million on the program as of December 2024.
GAO found that the VET TEC pilot did not fully align with leading practices for pilot design (see figure). VA officials said the agency did not have sufficient staff to fully address these practices. While VA initially determined it had sufficient staff to meet the pilot objectives, it did not continually assess staff resources. Given that a new VET TEC is authorized through 2027, assessing its human capital needs would help VA assure the program has appropriate resources.
Alignment of the VET TEC Pilot Program with Leading Practices for Effective Pilot Design
VA oversaw training providers by evaluating their applications. It denied 165 of 221 applications, suspended five provider facilities, conducted two on-site reviews, and referred one instance of potential provider fraud to its Office of Inspector General. GAO's analysis of VA data indicated about $4 million in potential overpayments in tuition and fees to providers, or about 2 percent of payments. VA officials said that providers sometimes submitted information after an initial payment, such as when a veteran never began training, creating a potential overpayment. VA did not have written procedures applicable to the pilot to detect certain potential overpayments. Such procedures would enhance VA's internal controls for the VET TEC payment process.
Veterans reported multiple challenges with training providers, including recruiting, educational quality, and career placement services. However, VA did not explicitly collect or analyze ongoing feedback through the GI Bill School Feedback Tool, its primary feedback mechanism. Doing so would help VA obtain critical input and enable it to assess and inform its VET TEC implementation.
Why GAO Did This Study
The federal government helps veterans transition to the civilian workforce. The Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2017 (the “Forever GI Bill”) instructed VA to carry out a 5-year pilot to train veterans for high-tech jobs. VA created VET TEC to support veterans who enrolled in high-tech courses through VA-approved training providers. In January 2025, legislation was enacted to establish a new program through September 2027.
The Forever GI Bill included a provision for GAO to assess VET TEC. GAO issued an initial report on VET TEC in October 2022. This report builds on GAO's prior work and examines (1) VET TEC's alignment with leading practices for effective pilot design, (2) VA's oversight of training providers, and (3) challenges reported by participants.
GAO compared VA's efforts to leading practices for effective pilot design and analyzed VA program data from April 1, 2019-August 19, 2024, the most recent available. GAO also analyzed 124 VET TEC comments submitted through the GI Bill Feedback Tool from July 2, 2019–January 5, 2024. GAO reviewed relevant VA documents, federal laws, and regulations and interviewed officials.
Recommendations
GAO is making four recommendations, including that VA assess its human capital needs to effectively implement VET TEC, address certain provider overpayments, and collect and analyze participant feedback. VA agreed with all but one of the recommendations.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should develop and implement a plan and related procedures for assessing the agency's current and future human capital needs to effectively implement the VET TEC program. This plan and related procedures could also assist the agency in administering future pilots, as applicable. (Recommendation 1) |
VA concurred with this recommendation in principle. VA stated the program is not permanent, with its current authority set to expire in 2027. As a result, they cannot submit a budget request in the regular budget cycle, which is developed 2 years in advance of the year of execution. VA said that new program features in each iteration of VET TEC make it difficult to forecast future staffing needs but that it would provide human capital requirements to Congress upon request (or if the program becomes permanent). We acknowledge that VET TEC is a time-limited program. However, a time limited program authorization should not preclude VA from determining the level of human capital needed to effectively implement the VET TEC program until the current program expires. For example, human capital planning could help VA ensure it has the necessary staff and contracting resources to accomplish not only the VET TEC objectives of helping veterans gain skills and employment but VA's overall mission objectives. Moreover, while the program may or may not be extended, understanding human capital needs for the current program would help inform a future program, should it be continued.
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| Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should develop and implement a written, systematic process to help prevent, identify, and recoup overpayments from VET TEC training providers, as appropriate. This could include documenting criteria aligned with the VET TEC milestone payment process to be applied before payments are made. In cases in which a payment has already been issued, such procedures could flag payments (1) for which the training provider subsequently submitted updated information and (2) that must be recovered from preferred providers because the veteran did not obtain meaningful employment. (Recommendation 2) |
VA disagreed with this recommendation. The agency stated that the VET TEC pilot did not fall under statutorily required processes for detecting potential overpayments and the new VET TEC program enacted in January 2025 requires the use of existing oversight methods. VA noted they have a robust systematic process to minimize errors and prevent overpayments and that the same systematic process to prevent overpayments for all other educational assistance programs prevents overpayments for VET TEC. In addition, VA said it mandates training for certain training provider officials and relies upon them to report accurate enrollment and graduation information, and that erroneous information provided by these officials is the only scenario that would result in an overpayment. We believe that while the processes and activities VA uses are important for its educational assistance programs generally, the processes VA described do not meet the intent of this recommendation, which is to develop a systematic oversight process that addresses risks specific to the milestone payments made under VET TEC. The process VA used during the pilot did not prevent payment errors as shown by VA's own validation of our analysis of potential overpayments during the pilot. During the validation, VA identified some that were due to its own administrative errors, and others that reflected corrected information submitted by providers after an initial payment. These instances suggest that a systematic process, for preventing, identifying, and addressing potential overpayments, is important for VET TEC. A systematic process could include, for example, an algorithm or other written procedures that would check all information available to VA at each milestone. While officials told us in December 2024 that a systematic process, such as an algorithm, would help detect potential overpayments, VA later commented that it did not believe an algorithm could improve upon existing practices. In addition, VA noted, and we agree, that VET TEC claims processing is inherently data-driven. We continue to believe that having a systematic process for detecting and recouping potential overpayments specific to the VET TEC program remains important, given the past implementation of the milestone payment process. We clarified the intent of our recommendation-for example, that the systematic process is to be specific to the VET TEC program and could include an algorithm or written procedures that would help prevent, identify, and recoup overpayments.
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| Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should clearly communicate that participants can use the GI Bill School Feedback Tool to provide ongoing feedback about the VET TEC program. For example, VA could modify the tool by (1) revising the introductory language to ensure veterans are aware the tool is not exclusive to schools or training providers eligible to receive GI Bill benefits, (2) adding language to clarify which program(s) a veteran is submitting feedback about, or (3) adding a check box for any non-GI Bill program and pilot programs, as well as check boxes for "other" or "unknown" programs. (Recommendation 3) |
VA agreed with this recommendation and said it woiuld update the GI Bill Feedback Tool to include VET TEC and publish participant feedback on the GI Bill Comparison Tool. Further, VA said it will develop and implement an outreach plan to inform VET TEC participants about how to provide feedback. VA estimated completing these efforts in April 2027. We will consider closing this recommendation when these efforts are complete.
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| Department of Veterans Affairs | The Secretary of Veterans Affairs should develop and implement a plan to analyze ongoing feedback it receives from VET TEC participants, including feedback VA receives through the GI Bill School Feedback Tool, to inform program implementation. This analysis could be incorporated into any future evaluation of the program. (Recommendation 4) |
VA agreed in principle with this recommendation. The agency plans to analyze feedback once the GI Bill Feedback Tool has been updated to include VET TEC, and to incorporate this feedback into existing oversight procedures, as are currently followed for other education benefit programs. In addition, VA said it will continue to send out participant experience surveys to VET TEC participants to obtain their feedback on providers and overall program satisfaction. Although these changes will not be in place to allow feedback to inform initial implementation of the newly enacted VET TEC program, VA noted that participant feedback and findings from oversight activities will inform updates to policies, procedures, training, guidance, and stakeholder engagement, among other activities. VA expects to complete these efforts in April 2027. We will consider closing this recommendation when these efforts are complete.
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