Student Financial Aid. Data Not Fully Utilized To Identify Inappropriately Awarded Loans and Grants. Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate.

This report examines the U.S. Department of Education's Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and Federal Pell Grant Program (FPGP), focusing on the extent to which the Department's student aid data are effectively used to help ensure compliance with federal requirements and prevent any abuses from recurring and the improvements that the Department has planned or made to its student aid systems. Data indicate that 43,519 ineligible students may have received 58,105 loans, totaling over $138 million, for fiscal years 1982 through 1992, and that more than 48,000 students may have received overpayments of their Pell grants for award years 1989 through 1993. The report describes some of the improvements put into place by the Department, such as the National Student Loan Data System, to help correct these abuses, as well areas needing further improvement to help prevent fraud and abuse. Six appendixes provide information on the scope and methodology of the study, the process for applying for federal student financial aid, guaranty agencies that guaranteed loans to ineligible students, comments from the Department of Education, General Accounting Office (GAO) contacts, and staff acknowledgements. A list of 11 related GAO publications is included. (MDM)