GAO: Education Has Addressed One of 10 Priority Recommendations
The U.S. Department of Education had implemented only one of eight priority recommendations identified by the Government Accountability Office in May 2025, according to a GAO update published July 8, 2026.
GAO added three more priority recommendations in June 2026, bringing the total number of recommendations highlighted in its update to 10. The concerns include the administration of federal student aid, the protection of sensitive student information and the management of financial risks involving charter-school management organizations.
The recommendations cover programs that affect students, borrowers and education institutions nationwide. GAO said action on them would improve access to financial aid, strengthen privacy protections, support modernization of student-aid systems and improve management of financial risks.
Student-aid oversight remains a central concern
Federal Student Aid administers the federal student-loan portfolio, which exceeded $1.6 trillion, according to related GAO work. The office also supports the federal student-aid system used by students seeking financial assistance for higher education.
GAO has separately identified gaps in the Education Department’s oversight of companies that service federal student loans. In February 2025, the department’s student-aid office stopped assessing loan servicers on accuracy and call quality because of staff-capacity limits, GAO reported.
Those assessments are intended to help monitor whether servicers provide accurate information and handle borrower interactions properly. GAO said the oversight gap creates risks that borrowers could face inaccurate records, incorrect billing or an incorrect repayment status.
The staffing capacity issue coincided with a sharp decline in the Federal Student Aid workforce. GAO reported that FSA had 1,433 employees in January 2025 and 777 employees in December 2025.
The figures represent a reduction of 656 employees over that period. GAO’s related work cited the staffing decline alongside weaknesses in loan-servicer oversight, but the reported findings do not attribute the entire reduction to a single personnel action.
Broader accountability gaps
In a separate report, GAO summarized unresolved accountability issues involving federal student aid and higher education. That report said the Education Department had not fully addressed seven of 10 recommendations in the underlying reports.
The recommendation totals reflect different layers of GAO’s oversight work. The July priority update identifies one recommendation as implemented among the eight first identified in May 2025, while the agency added three priority recommendations in June 2026. The update therefore highlights 10 priority areas overall; it does not mean that every recommendation is wholly unaddressed.
The newly highlighted areas extend beyond loan servicing. GAO identified the need to improve the federal student-aid system, protect sensitive information and manage financial risks associated with charter-school management organizations.
Protecting student information is particularly significant because Education’s programs depend on systems that handle personal and financial data. GAO’s recommendation, as summarized in the update, concerns stronger protections; it does not establish that a student-data breach occurred.
What the update means
The July report shows that most of the priority recommendations GAO is tracking for the Education Department remain unresolved while the department continues to administer federal aid and oversee related education programs.
For students and borrowers, the practical issues include access to financial aid, the reliability of information used to manage aid and loans, and the accuracy of communications from loan servicers. For institutions and organizations connected to federal education programs, the recommendations also point to continuing concerns about information security and financial-risk management.
GAO’s update adds three priority areas to the concerns first identified in May 2025. Its related reports provide more detail on student-aid staffing and servicer oversight, including the February 2025 pause in accuracy and call-quality assessments and the workforce change recorded during 2025.
The published update does not provide a program-by-program status table in its summary text or quantify the financial exposure associated with each unresolved charter-school recommendation. It does, however, identify the areas in which GAO says further action would improve federal education programs.
Sources
- Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Education, U.S. Government Accountability Office
- Department of Education: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Accountability in Higher Education, U.S. Government Accountability Office
- Federal Student Loans: Education Needs to Address Gaps in Servicer Oversight, U.S. Government Accountability Office
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