Survey Report on the Veterans and Dependents Education Loan Program

A limited survey of the administration of the Veterans and Dependents Education Loan Program in the Veterans Administration's Washington regional office (VAWRO) was performed. The survey included an examination of loan repayment records and activities, including notification procedures.

The following problem areas were found: (1) according to the Veterans Administration time schedule for notification procedures, only one timely case resulted in all of the cases examined; (2) in the majority of the cases examined, the interval between notification letters had exceeded the established schedule; (3) in most of the cases, at least one notification letter had been skipped in the prescribed notification sequence; (4) in the majority of cases examined, VAWRO failed to send out a letter explaining the repayment options to the veteran until after the first payment was due; (5) in most of the defaulted cases, the second option letter was not sent to the veteran before the loan was placed in default; (6) sufficient time had lapsed in many of the cases for the loans to have been placed in default, however, VAWRO had not taken action in most of these cases; (7) of the default cases that were reviewed, the majority were placed in default at least 2 months late; (8) one case classified as a defaulted loan should not have been placed in default; (9) in some of the default cases, there were no supporting entries on the loan accounts receivable cards; and (10) the loan cards were found to be in poor condition.

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.

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