Year 2000 Computing Crisis

Year 2000 failures could severely disrupt the Department of Education's student financial aid delivery process, potentially delaying disbursements and application processing. Moreover, because of system interdependencies, repercussions from Year 2000-related problems could be felt throughout the student financial aid community, which includes students, institutions of higher education, financial organizations, and other government agencies. The Department was very slow to implement a comprehensive Year 2000 program to address these risks; basic awareness and assessment tasks were not completed until recently. The Department is now accelerating its program, but with the slow start, it is still playing catch up. The Department faces major challenges ahead but has limited time remaining to deal with them. Therefore, it must also focus on developing appropriate contingency plans to ensure business continuity in the event of key systems failures.

GAO noted that: (1) Education faces major risks that Y2K failures could severely disrupt the student financial aid delivery process, including delaying disbursements and application processing; (2) further, because of systems interdependencies, repercussions from Y2K-related problems could be felt throughout the student financial aid community--a network including students, institutions of higher educations, financial organizations, and other government agencies; (3) the department was very slow in implementing a comprehensive Y2K program to address these risks--basic awareness and assessment tasks were not completed until recently; (4) Education is now accelerating its program, but with the slow start, it remains in a position of playing catch up; (5) accordingly, the department has major challenges ahead but limited time remaining to adequately deal with them; and (6) therefore, it must also focus on developing appropriate contingency plans to ensure business continuity in the event of key systems failures.