The Veterans Affairs Department is trying to recoup more than $200 million in overpayments that mistakenly went to veterans using GI Bill benefits to attend school, according to a government watchdog group.
The VA routinely overpays GI Bill benefits to both schools and individual veterans, mainly when veterans drop classes or fail to complete them and become ineligible for the tuition and living stipends that the VA initially paid, according to the Government Accountability Office.
The debt comes as a surprise to many veterans, largely because the “VA is not effectively communicating its program policies to veterans,” and “veterans may be incurring debts that they could have otherwise avoided,” the GAO found.
The problem is worsened by the VA’s paper-based notification system and its lackluster reporting requirements related to GI Bill benefits, the report found.
In 2014, about one in every four GI Bill beneficiaries, or about 225,000 veterans, incurred an overpayment debt, averaging about $570, the GAO said.
In most cases, veterans are responsible for repaying the debt; the school is responsible in a small percentage of circumstances.
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