Department of Education Uncertain About Effectiveness of Its Special Services Program

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of Education's Special Services for Disadvantaged Students program.

Under the Special Services program, grants are awarded to postsecondary institutions which support projects for providing disadvantaged students with services such as tutoring, counseling, and special classes. GAO found that Education does not have any assurance that the program is achieving its goal of increasing the retention and graduation rates of disadvantaged postsecondary students. Projects are not always consistent with the program's goal, and Education has not adequately monitored projects to determine whether their objectives have been met. GAO found that site visits and project-prepared performance reports did not provide adequate data to assess performance. Further, even though the projects are required to report annually on the status of their operations, the reports neither compare actual performance with proposed objectives nor provide information on the academic status of students. GAO believes that such information would be useful in assessing how well the program's retention and graduation goals are being met and in identifying projects which have been successful in accomplishing their goals.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Morton E. Henig Team: General Accounting Office: Human Resources Division Phone: (202) 275-5365