GAO-05-31 Office of Federal Student Aid: Better Strategic and Human Capital Planning Would Help Sustain Management Progress

In 2003, the Department of Education's Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) managed about $60 billion in new financial aid. In 1998, the Congress designated FSA as a performance-based organization. In so doing, it specified purposes for the agency, such as to reduce program costs and increase accountability of its officials, and provided flexibilities such as allowing FSA to pay bonuses. Also FSA is required to annually prepare a performance plan and report and have performance agreements for its senior officials. Past reviews revealed serious problems and concerns about FSA's management. In January 2003, GAO reported that FSA had made progress but had not sufficiently addressed some key management issues. Also, GAO noted that FSA, like other agencies needed to address human capital issues. GAO assessed FSA's progress in (1) addressing key management issues and meeting requirements for planning and reporting, and (2) developing a human capital strategy and increasing the accountability of its officials. Appendixes include scope and methodology, human capital analysis, recommendations, definitions, and agency comments.

There is concern about the length and complexity of the Free Application for Fed. Student Aid (FAFSA) and the statutory need analysis formula used to determine aid eligibility. A study group examined options and implications in simplifying the financial aid process. It focused on: (1) identifying ways to shorten the FAFSA and make it less burdensome to complete; (2) identifying changes to the statutory need analysis formula that would reduce the amount of financial info. required by the FAFSA without causing redist. of fed. and state student aid; and (3) determining how any changes to the FAFSA and the statutory need analysis formula could be implemented. This summary captures the ideas and themes that emerged at the panel and during interviews.

L. 105-244), Congress authorized the establishment of the federal government's first performance-based organization (PBO), the Office of Federal Student Aid, as a way to improve the efficacy and efficiency of student aid delivery, and make it less expensive. [...] In addition, FSA's programs continue to be included in the General Accounting Office's (GAO) list of high risk programs.5 During the 1998 reauthorization, Congress acted to improve ED's management of the federal financial aid programs.6 The 1998 Amendments to the HEA created the PBO as a way to more effectively administer the programs. [...] Woods utilized FSA's score from a survey conducted by the National Performance Review (FSA ranked 33 out of the 49 participating federal agencies, in terms of how employees viewed the agency), as a benchmark to gauge the state of employee satisfaction when he arrived (Woods was the Director of NPR at the time the survey was conducted). [...] The NPR survey also indicated that: only 60% of FSA employees were satisfied with their jobs, one out of four could not identify any of the organization's goals that related to satisfying customers, and half of the respondents indicated that they needed more training.9 One of the solutions FSA implemented to deal with the disconnect between employee's understanding of his/her position and the agen [...] In addition to emphasizing balance, the scorecard also includes a roster of the names of all persons working on a particular project, the scores they received in previous years on each of the measures, and a delineated list of all projects that the team is working on.

GAO-05-105 Student Financial Aid: Need Determination Could Be Enhanced through Improvements in Education's Estimate of Applicants' State Tax Payments