The Watchdogs Who Didn’t Watch: $2.3 Billion in GI Bill Payments at Risk

State Approving Agencies are the gatekeepers who decide which programs may take GI Bill money. The OIG estimated 86% weren’t adequately overseeing programs — with $2.3B in improper payments possible over five years.

Before a school can take GI Bill money, a State Approving Agency (SAA) is supposed to approve and monitor its programs. It is the gate the ghost-student schools on the GI Bill fraud page walked through.

The OIG estimated 86 percent of SAAs did not adequately oversee GI Bill programs — and that the Veterans Benefits Administration could issue an estimated $2.3 billion in improper payments to ineligible programs over five years as a result. VBA, for its part, had maintained it had only a limited oversight role over the agencies meant to do the overseeing.

A gate, a gatekeeper who doesn’t watch, and an agency that says watching isn’t its job: that is the complete oversight structure through which fraudulent schools certified students who did not exist.

"the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) could issue an estimated $2.3 billion in improper payments"
— VA OIG

Source: VA OIG — VA’s Oversight of State Approving Agency Program Monitoring for Post-9/11 GI Bill Students. Part of the VA Fraud library — see also the case files for the prosecutions these systems produced.