Our objective was to determine the Department’s compliance with Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI) reporting requirements, specifically whether it reported every 2 years on ESI experiments as required.
The Department was not complying with ESI reporting requirements, as it had not published a comprehensive ESI report since 2012 (the 2010–2011 award year). Although it published two ESI reports in 2020, the reports did not satisfy all reporting requirement. Further, the Department implemented 15 ESI experiments since the issuance of the last comprehensive report (2012) that had not been reported on.
We made two recommendations, including that the Department ensure that reporting on each of the ongoing experiments conducted under the ESI, as well as those that have been completed or discontinued that have not yet been reported on, is completed and submitted to Congress as required.
Data Quality and Reporting, Oversight and Monitoring—Student Financial Assistance Programs