general accounting organization and others and so let me just start and see if i can refresh everyone's memory. this is an april 26, 2012, article called "accountability in military education by holly petraeus." i think we know who she's married to. she refers to interviews that her bureau, the consumer -- she describes an active duty military spouse at fort campbell, kentucky who filled out an interest forms and was called 10 to 15 times a day until she enrolled. that sounds like an abusive practice to me. another article she wrote for "the new york times" on september 21, 2011, titled "for-profit colleges -- vulnerable gi's" she noted the financial reality of what we're talking about between 2006 and 2010 the money received in military education benefits by just 20 for profit companies

soared to an estimated $521 million from $66 million. and we all know that the for-profits are getting a lion's share of the gi benefit and military assistance benefits based upon the proportion of students they enroll. the des moines register recently did an editorial called for profit colleges need close scrutiny from congress. they cite the gao study. posing as prospective college students applying for admission to 15 for-profit schools. they were misled about financial costs, aid, graduation rates while being hounded to enroll. one was called 180 times in a single month. a recruiter said a massage therapy certification for $14,000 was a good value even though the same certificate could have been earned at a nearby community college for

$520. a recent usa today editorial that just came out refers to schools stretching the truth or worse, 13 of the 15 colleges investigated by the gao gave agents posing as applicants questionable, even deceptive pitches about graduation rates, guaranteed jobs or likely earnings. that editorial concluded, this is a shoddy way to treat any student and it's a dubious way to invest taxpayer money. it's just all the more offensive when it's applied to veterans. i don't think we should ignore the realities that this subject has been part of a lot of intense scrutiny and even our former colleague in responding and providing an opposing viewpoint, mr. gunderson said, all schools should be measured by the same standards. no more, no less. when the administration and congress apply such standards to all post secondary institutions, we applaud their hard work.

i think that's what we're trying to get to here is a system of transparency that holds all institutions getting federal dollars accountable. but we also have to be aware of where the lion's share of that funding is going and making sure people aren't being misled into pursuing education they have no realistic expectation of completing or getting a good paying job. when you look at the default rates on these loans and on these payments, there is another highly disproportionate figure that stands out. i'm not trying to pick on anybody. i think all of these institutions have a place in the portfolio of educational services to veterans. but we also can't ignore some of these realities. i think, sir, my point was on a compliance survey or on a review at a school, it's difficult to see those predatory practices. i'm basically a one-person operation in terms of professional staff. i can't go undercover. most of us don't have the

resources to do an undercover study like gao did. when we get that kind of information, we do react to it. we do respond to it. i can say in the state of west virginia, we now have a law, state law that probably was passed the regulations were passed today, i hope, at our commission meeting that requires all of our schools, public and private, to provide the very kind of information that the executive order requires, that senator webb's bill requires, senator murray's bill requires. we've already taken that step in west virginia for all students for all schools. because you're right, it is a big issue. people do need to understand how to make the choice. if we had more ability to look harder at some of these schools, perhaps we would find more. we don't have the resources at this point. we've had $19 million for about seven years to fund our program

and nobody has been able to hire any extra people. that's what it would take to do the increased oversight. >> do you think that the laws on the books at present provide enough remedies to pursue people who are engaged in fraudulent and deceptive practices? >> yes and no. >> let's talk about the no part. >> they're vague to some extent. and i'm not suggesting that we can come up with a cutting score that will say, well, if you get to this level, you're okay and if you're below that level, you're not. because the metrics are very, very divfficulvas a number have today. with saas doing the approval, disapproval as we used do, we have more flexibility to find and remedy those things. right now, half of our schools, at least in my state, maybe more in other states, half of the

schools are no loerng under my jurisdiction for all practical purposes. >> i'm sorry, my time is up mr. chairman. but why is that? >> section 203, public law 111-277 said all public accredited and private not for profit accredited programs are deemed approved and we have no authority do anything about that. >> okay. >> deceptive practices or educational outcomes or anything. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. mr. walz? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'd follow-up on that. would it be your contention, mr. gebhart, if we change that and gave you that ability to go look at those things, that would help the situation? >> i believe it would. >> absolutely it would. no question about it. >> because this one, i think mr. braley did an eloquent job of explaining the frustration. this is fraud in this. i have to be very clear, this is to me the most despicable kind. preying on the veterans at the risk of their lives and seeing

them as an easy target. i am cognizant about not painting with a gross generalization across every institution, but we have to find a way to weed these folks out. mr. gebhart, you said something i haven't heard yet. were you intimating that the public executions are worse than the private? is that the case in west virginia? >> in terms of paperwork processing, yes, i would say so. that doesn't mean they're educationally worse. it means we find more errors in those kinds of schools than in the private schools. at least that's my experience. i think mr. -- >> i share that. with respect to the supervisory visits we've done in the past and the compliance surveys, i think that lines up exactly with what mr. gebhart says. my experience is exactly that. >> so we're not getting good data then? we don't have access to good data? listening to mr. thnassirian an

others -- i'm kind of at a loss here. i was trying to get my mind wrapped around how big the problem is, secondly how we approach and tackle the problem. that's going to be very hard to do if what you're telling me is you're not sure we're getting good paperwork in. >> well, i think it's a mixed bag here. we have a little bit of both. certainly, the issue is if we're not involved on the front side, think of it like the -- like a physician and a mortician. we're in the mortician's role right now where when we were the physician, we helped things, we fixed problems before they became big issues. and with this change, we are definitely the mortician. we're not the engineer, we're the mechanic. >> it's that gatekeeper analogy where mr. nis earian said

wouldn't be it better to keep the bad food off the table? >> that's appropriate. >> is the frustration boiled up to an executive order that said do it and do it now. do you believe this will be the key to fix this? this executive order as it's implemented? >> i think it will go a long way in some areas but it still doesn't do as much in oversight. the fact that i'm only seeing half of the institutions in training facilities that i saw last year says things could be going on in that other half that need to be addressed and won't even be discovered. >> i think you're hitting on something right there. my fear is that we've got a lot of partners, i think, could help us and listening to this last panel, they feel like they were isolated away from being part of the solution and now they're being deemed as part of the problem. and i would hope the case wouldn't be there would be

resistance put up. but you could see it where there's more requirements coming down without looking at the data and there's a sense of institutional pride that will come with a lot of the place that is we're doing a pretty good job, showing the numbers but it's not making any difference. we're getting hammered down with everyone else. >> yeah. right. >> i think, too, if we are -- if the saas are out visiting all of the schools every year as we have always done up until this year, oversight will be improved, responsiveness will be improved, we can fix problems on the spot in many cases. working for the chancellor of higher education, i can go to a president and say, you have a problem here because your data system doesn't work right to tell your clerks what to do when a veteran drops a class. instead of a manual check. i can fix that. the other thing is, i get a sense that there is some feeling that we are against va and against compliance.

that is far, far, far from the truth. we have always done compliance reviews. we've shared the information with va. we just haven't done it on their forms and in their process. we would be very willing, we are very willing to help va with doing compliance. what that entails is gathering data in the field and then analyzing va payment records to see if they paid correctly. >> you're going to have to be trusted with some of their data. it's a question back in the earlier panel. >> not really. we can provide data from the school to say this is what the school said would happen on the va certification form. we look at their academic records and their financial records and we say, this is what did happen. when they don't match up, we have a discrepancy. we can send that data to va and they can look at their records, which are very cumbersome and complicated for most saas to even get into. i don't have access yet, chad doesn't have access yet.

about half of our people do. so if we were to simply say -- va were to say, we want you to look at these 30 cases, get us the data on them, we could very easily do that because we've done that anyway. >> general worley, doesn't that make sense to have the resources out there to do that, to be able to do what mr. gebhart is saying as a collaborative effort? >> thank you, congressman. a couple of points on this issue. the pre-approved, if you will, institutions under the 111-377 law are not certainly prohibited from being visited. they're in the mix. so they get compliance visits just like other people. the magnitude of the expansion, if you will, if i could give you some numbers, last year we

conducted without saas being involved, approximately 1700 compliance surveys. this year, to date, this fiscal year to date we've done about 2700. so being able to use the resource of the saas to do these kinds of surveys has truly been an expanse of the effort. the other thing to understand is, the compliance surveys that they're conducting related to the post 9/11 gi bill are a little bit more complex. they take a little bit longer to do. i'm not sure if that's what accounts for fewer numbers in the cases you've heard here. but that may account for some of it. as we look at these things, although it may be difficult to

determine the deceptive practices and those kinds of things, the compliance surveys are able to identify in some cases some serious enough misrepresentation or improper practices that the saas are pulling approvals. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your candidness to help us understand this. i appreciate it. >> thank you. i'd like to follow-up on that. i'm not sure which one of you all can answer this. but these aren't just hypothetical situations out there. these are real cases but that veterans are experiencing. but as you're collecting that information, do we even have a way of classifying them? do we have a way of categorizing these specific cases so we know what the problem is? is there a continual problem with a specific institution? is there a problem across the board for veterans that they're experiencing? in one of the previous panels,

actually, mr. gunderson said that the number one complaint that he received at the school down in virginia was payment from the va. so we're talking about aggressive or deceptive actions here. i mean, is there any way, do we have any categories? is this what the executive order is requesting? is that what we're going to get? any comments? >> we don't have a database but we have the data points. every time we did a visit, we would know what we had seen, what we had done. that was transmitted to va if there were issues. but we don't have a nationwide database. i don't believe va does. but i'm not sure. >> mr. chairman, not sure if we have a database to get at what

you're asking. but again, as these things are identified as we go along, the more serious issues are addressed, smaller issues are also addressed that aren't to the degree of withdrawal or suspension of a school as mr. gebhart has described. there's a lot of corrective actions that happen along the way to help educational institutions comply with what they're supposed to be doing. >> i guess what i'm trying to find is, the only -- the number one complaint that we heard from, from all three panels, one that was mentioned was payment. what other problems are we hearing about that the veterans are experiencing or hearing that it's aggressive tactics, deceptive tactics, veterans are they experiencing disappointment in the services that they've

received? how are we going to address that? i mean, is there a plan? >> well, as you know, congressman, there are many -- sorry, mr. chairman, there are many avenues for veterans to make their complaints known to us. and then we address those either through our call center or the website and we take actions on that. where there are issues with payments or issues with timeliness, again we work hard to process claims in a timely way and to pay accurately and where occasionally, of course, like all humans, we might make a mistake and we work to correct that and restore the proper benefit to the veteran. >> would you say that the va has tools already in place to deal

with bad apples out there? if there's an egregious case that you can -- are there schools that have had payments withdrawn or are taken out of eligibility? >> there are schools who have either been suspended or withdrawn as gi bill approved schools based on things found either through compliance surveys or through state inspections or reviews. yes, sir. >> mr. chairman, if i may give an example of something. i think, too, to back up just a moment. the va has done a fantastic job of dealing with an extremely complicated benefit package and initially there were lots of difficulties as with every gi bill in getting payments out. things are going much, much better. it's the same thing, if you ask a military member how is the food in the chow hall, they're going to say, well, it's not mom's home cooking.

if you ask them how the va payments are going, it's not fast enough. that's a fact of life. there are some legitimate concerns, va is working on them. they work quickly and well to resolve individual situations. and then i lost my train of thought. >> keep going. >> yeah, keep going. in any case, the va is doing a good job of catching up on things. i think at the school level there's frustration among the schools because they're not getting the help they used to get from state approving agencies because we're not out there as much. and yes, we may visit them, we may do a compliance survey if va assigns one to us. under our contract we will not be reimbursed for the cost of makes those kinds of visits unless they're compliance surveys. that's why we're saying we're not doing the oversight that we used to do.

we can't afford to do it. we don't have state money flowing into our pockets. we are reimbursed by the contracts we have in essence with congress through the va. so that has been limited and we can't make the kinds of visits we used to make. we would like to be out there more. we would like to head off the problems. we can fix them on the spot. we notify va of the problems we find and sometimes they have to do a compliance survey. just as a bit of background, i was with va for 23 years. i started doing compliance surveys in 1975, and i was on two that ended very badly for the schools. we closed one school completely. it was a private proprietary operation that was just not a good thing. and we came very close to closing a public community college and we cost a president

his job through the state approving agency back then. this is not new stuff. it's complicated more by chapter 33, the post 9/11 gi bill and the many ways payments are made and so on. it's not that terribly new. but with va and the saas working together in the past, those problems have been dealt with for 65 years. now we're not -- we have not been in that kind of partnership recently. we want to be, we want to be able to help va. we want to be able to say that we're looking at educational quality, we're looking at all those things, looking at appropriateness of reporting, let va look at the appropriateness of their payments. we don't feel we should be auditing a federal system's payments or federal entitlement

program's payments. in essence, what we're doing, that's what we're doing with the -- we're more than happy to provide them all the information they need from our campuses to do their audits. and we would welcome the chance to continue that relationship but do it for all of our schools like we've been doing. >> i might add, sorry. if i might add, historically, there was a period of time when some of the states, including my state, state of missouri, oklahoma, in the arena of on-the-job training of apprenticeship, we did, we had data gathering assignments. we assisted with the compliance on that end, which is i think is basically what skip is speaking to as a possibility in the future. and this worked extremely well. that practice at some point was abandoned, but it was successful. >> okay. thank you, mr. braley, any further questions or comments?

>> just a couple. mr. gebhart, that chow in the chow hall may not be like mom's home cooking but my impression is it's better than it used to be. >> i understand it's improved. >> general worley, i want to follow-up with a question for you. i recently had the honor of flying to iwo jima with 12 world war ii veterans who served there with my dad 67 years ago. one is the president of the university of richmond. and these were the original beneficiaries of the gi bill. and some of the places, september 21st, 2011, article in "the new york times" about gi ace, she wrote one of the most egregious reports of questionable marketing involved a college recruiter who visited a marine barracks at camp le june, north carolina, as the pbs

program frontline reported, the recruiter signed up marines with serious brain injuries. the fact that some of them couldn't remember what courses they were taking was immaterial as long as they signed on the dotted line. when i read that, i get furious. because we dishonor every veteran when we allow practices like that to take place and don't find an effective way to swiftly and appropriately punish people who would do that to the men and women who defend this country. so i'm going to give you the last word and ask you, how do we do a better job once these practices are identified in getting that information to the appropriate agency for swift and effective corrective action?

>> thank you, ranking member braley. as a vet an myself with a son who is actually stationed at camp le june, i couldn't agree with you more. the particular issue that you talk about should be addressed as part of this executive order, perhaps not newly identified necessarily, but on the department of defense side, as you know, the executive order will require more focus on access to educational institutions going on to military installations to put more rigor behind even letting the access happen in the first place, which would be prevent -- in addition, as you know, the executive order talks about the enforcement through some kind of

centralized -- this will take some work and collaboration. they have one version or another. for instance, we use and address -- to try to address these types of issues. bringing that together will be some -- significant work has to be done in order to put together the provisions of this. we stand ready for the issues. >> thank you. i thank all of the witnesses who were here today. we really appreciate your testimony. >>. [ inaudible ] >> 30 seconds. >> an example of this, a large

chron chronic. [ inaudible ] withdrawn -- withdraw the approval for gi bills and the program. they will be meeting in june to consider that school's entire institutional accreditation. if they take that away, my first step will be to withdraw their approval as well. and force them to reapply as a nonaccredited school and will take a harder look at what they're doing. so if we know about things like that, if we're told, we do take action. similar case in texas, i think senator durbin, i believe, became aware of a deceptive practice and i can't think of the name of the school, but our state approving agency in texas

immediately suspended that school because it was in violation. so when we find out about things, action is taken. it's a question more of how do we find out. those things are very difficult to see by looking at school's paperwork. >> thank you very much. i apologize for the microphone situation. [ inaudible ] thank you for meeting here and for your service and testimony today. we obviously know the challenges that we face. we've got to find a way to make sure that our veterans are getting the services that they deserve and are expecting when they do sign up. if there is nothing further, i think we're going to go ahead and call the meeting. want to thank everyone who testified today. i ask that all members have five legislative days in which to

revise their remarks and include any extraneous material in regards to today's hearing. without objection, so ordered. this hearing is adjourned. >> coming up, the president's commission on america's nuclear future on nuclear waste storage followed by a hearing with the head of the white house office of science and technology policy. sunday, a awarding winning author and historian david pietrusza. his passion for u.s. presidents and the great american pastime, baseball, has resulted in a dozen books, including 1920, the year of the six presidents. 1960, lbj versus jfk versus