Recommendation: The Department of Education's Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights should determine the extent to which Title IX coordinators at the K-12 level are aware of and using the tools recommended in OCR's existing guidance and any barriers preventing their use of this guidance, and use this information in OCR's efforts to encourage them to work with athletics administrators on ensuring equal athletic opportunities. (Recommendation 1)

Agency: Department of Education: Office for Civil Rights
Status: Open

Comments: In November 2018, the Office for Civil Rights sent an e-mail to its Regional Directors to inform them of GAO's report, remind them of the importance of coordination between Title IX coordinators and athletics administrators, and encourage them to look for opportunities in their investigations and compliance work to examine the role of Title IX coordinators at the K-12 level. Agency officials also said they sent a letter to Title IX coordinators reminding them of the tools available to them under Title IX. While these are important first steps, as we noted in our report, we continue to believe the systemic approach we recommended is necessary. We are working with Education to obtain updated information, and will close the recommendation if Education demonstrates that any of these steps results in obtaining new information about the extent to which K-12 Title IX coordinators are aware of and using existing Title IX tools, and any barriers they face in doing so, and that they have used this information to inform their work with Title IX coordinators.

Recommendation: To improve the administration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, reduce the occurrence of overpayments, and increase debt collections, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should address overpayments resulting from enrollment changes by identifying and implementing a cost-effective way to allow Post-9/11 GI Bill beneficiaries to verify their enrollment status each month, and require monthly reporting.

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open

Comments: VA officials reported in August 2020 that the agency was in the latter stages of developing a pilot program to verify beneficiaries' attendance using text messaging. This pilot, scheduled for release in November 2020, will initially be limited to beneficiaries receiving the Rogers STEM Scholarship to extend their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, but would eventually be expanded to all Post-9/11 GI Bill beneficiaries if it is successful. VA expects to complete these efforts by December 2021.

Recommendation: To improve the administration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, reduce the occurrence of overpayments, and increase debt collections, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should improve efforts to notify veterans and schools about overpayment debts by identifying and implementing other methods of notifying veterans and schools about debts to supplement the agency's mailed notices (e.g., email, eBenefits).

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open

Comments: VA officials reported in August 2020 that the agency has taken action to move away from a reliance on mailed letters, including the eventual use of email notifications for debt letters and other GI Bill correspondence. The agency plans to implement these changes December by 2020.

Recommendation: To improve the administration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, reduce the occurrence of overpayments, and increase debt collections, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should revise policy for calculating overpayments to increase collections by prorating tuition overpayments when veterans reduce their enrollment during the term based on the actual date of the enrollment change rather than paying additional benefits through the end of the month during which the reduction occurred.

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open

Comments: VA officials reported in August 2020 that the agency is revising its tuition overpayment regulations to address the recommendation in GAO's 2015 report. VA officials said that these revisions are part of its broader regulatory proposal that has experienced delays due to 2017 legislative changes and other legal developments. They expect these proposed regulations to be published by December 2020.

Recommendation: To improve the administration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, reduce the occurrence of overpayments, and increase debt collections, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs should ensure it is recovering the full amount of tuition and fee payments if a school does not charge a veteran for any tuition or fees after dropping a class or withdrawing from school. For example, VA could adjust its overpayment calculation to account for these situations or provide schools with guidance on how to account for school refund policies when reporting enrollment and tuition changes.

Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Status: Open

Comments: VA officials reported in August 2020 that the agency plans to amend its procedures to account for school refund policies when calculating veterans' overpayment debts, as we recommended. VA plans to incorporate this change in its information technology (IT) upgrades by December 2021. Earlier plans to implement this recommendation were put on hold so the department could prioritize other IT updates that it said are necessary to implement certain legislative changes to the GI Bill program.