Skip to main content

Department of Education

Jump To:

Recent Reports

View More Reports

Open Recommendations (52 total)

Higher Education: Employment Discrimination Case Referrals Between Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Could Be Improved

GAO-24-105516
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education Education should track the number of days it takes regional offices to refer employment discrimination complaints to EEOC and use the information to develop a plan to reduce referral delays. Such a plan could include applying good practices from certain regional offices agency-wide, or reallocating resources. (Recommendation 1)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Federal Student Loans: Education Should Enhance Reporting on Direct Loan Performance and Risk

GAO-24-106174
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should enhance Education's reporting on its Direct Loan program performance and risk information. Enhanced reporting should include further reporting of sensitivity analyses and other factors, such as performance information, credit risk concentrations, and administrative risks. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation and stated that the department would assess possible enhancements to reporting on the Direct Loan program performance and risk information. We will monitor the agency's progress.

K-12 Education: Education Could Enhance Oversight of School Improvement Activities

GAO-24-105648
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should update monitoring protocols to ensure that monitoring staff independently select support and improvement plans for review. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education generally agreed with this recommendation. They plan to begin updating protocols to ensure that staff independently select CSI plans for review in Spring 2024

Artificial Intelligence: Agencies Have Begun Implementation but Need to Complete Key Requirements

GAO-24-105980
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the department develops a plan to either achieve consistency with EO 13960 section 5 for each AI application or retires AI applications found to be developed or used in a manner that is not consistent with the order. (Recommendation 12)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Cybersecurity: Federal Agencies Made Progress, but Need to Fully Implement Incident Response Requirements

GAO-24-105658
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should ensure that the agency fully implements all event logging requirements as directed by OMB guidance. (Recommendation 3)
Open
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Student Loans: Education Should Proactively Manage Fraud Risks in Any Future Debt Relief Efforts

GAO-24-107142
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should fully implement all stages of its fraud risk management plans for any future debt relief efforts before approving borrowers for relief. (Recommendation 2)
Open
Education partially concurred with this recommendation. The department disagreed with our assertion that all of these stages needed to be in place before it began providing relief to borrowers. Our report noted that Education's fraud risk management process only works properly when all its major pillars are in place. However, Education was planning to provide relief to millions of borrowers before implementing the review stage, one of three primary stages in the department's application process. This review stage would have provided a critical check on the process as Education provided relief, and would have provided further assurance that Education's fraud management processes were working as intended. The department also said we suggest that it needed to review supplemental tax documentation from all selected high-risk applicants prior to approving any borrowers for relief. That was not the intent of this recommendation: Education should wait on providing relief until it has reviewed sufficient borrower documentation to have reasonable assurance its process for flagging borrowers is working. This would ensure that the review stage provides an effective and essential evaluative check on the program without being overly costly or time-intensive.

Student Loans: Education Should Proactively Manage Fraud Risks in Any Future Debt Relief Efforts

GAO-24-107142
Show
2 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should implement controls to avoid relying solely on self-reported data in any future debt relief efforts. (Recommendation 3)
Open
Education partially agreed with this recommendation. Education stated that the debt relief program did not rely solely on self-reported data. While Education noted that affected borrowers were a small portion of eligible borrowers, given the program's size, we still found more than 2 million borrowers whom the department automatically approved based on their self-reported income. Applying the additional fraud mitigation tools Education designed for the application process-which approved most borrowers without the need to provide additional documentation-to borrowers who self-reported their income would present a minimal burden on the department and borrowers. Education also stated that as pandemic-related flexibilities for self-reporting expire, it plans to build capacity for future efforts by implementing data-related upgrades as part of the Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education Act. Although these efforts could potentially mitigate the risk of relying on self-reported data in future debt relief efforts, they do not affect the previously reported income data from 2020 and 2021, which Education relied on for its original relief program.
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should incorporate robust evaluations of fraud risk management activities into any future debt relief efforts before approving borrowers for relief. This could involve partnering with IRS to cross-check incomes of approved borrowers. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education partially concurred with this recommendation. The department agreed with the need to incorporate robust evaluations of fraud risk management activities into any future debt relief efforts. However, Education noted that crosschecking incomes of approved borrowers was unnecessarily burdensome because it had incorporated similar assessments into its initial selection process for income verification. Yet, Education was unable to provide reasonable assurance that its approach for approving borrowers had worked as intended. Education did not provide us sufficient documentation to verify whether it executed its complex new processes for selecting borrowers for income verification accurately and effectively. Without assurance that its approach works as intended, an additional safeguard is necessary to determine if the borrowers Education approves actually have qualifying incomes. Education could work with IRS to quickly assess a sample of approved borrowers, to determine whether Education's fraud management processes are effective.

K-12 Education: Updated Federal Guidance Would Assist Title I Schools in Meeting Parent and Family Engagement Requirements

GAO-24-106143
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Secretary of Education should update its Title I guidance on parent and family engagement to reflect requirements under current law. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation. The agency stated that it plans to take steps to update the guidance and consider other steps, such as technical assistance, to help ensure that all requirements involving parent and family engagement are met and fully understood. We will monitor the agency's progress on these efforts.

Special Education: Additional Data Could Help Early Intervention Programs Reach More Eligible Infants and Toddlers

GAO-24-106019
Show
1 Open Recommendations
Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Education The Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services should encourage all states to use demographic data they already collect to maximize children's access to Part C early intervention services. (Recommendation 1)
Open
Education agreed with this recommendation and noted plans to address it by developing revised instructions for states to follow when submitting required annual plans and reports. Specifically, the Education described plans to encourage all states to conduct a root cause analysis using all available Child Find data for two related monitoring indicators and require reporting for states that are having trouble meeting Child Find data requirements. The agency said such analysis may include demographic data (such as race and ethnicity data), as well as other Child Find related data. We await further progress on these efforts.
View More Recommendations

Related Pages