Detrimental Delays: Reviewing Payment Failures in VA’s Education Programs
House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity
2025-12-16
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Source: Congress.gov
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All right, good morning. This subcommittee will come to order. Starting out, I want to make sure that we stipulate that the chair may declare recess at any time, which we already know we will need to utilize. I want to welcome the witnesses here today to discuss the Chapter 35 issues that have plagued VA education benefits for the last several months. And while I am not the chairman of this specific subcommittee, I am the chairman of the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, as well as a member of this subcommittee. And a top priority of mine is ensuring VA's technology works for veterans, so there's significant overlap with what we are talking about today. The VA, of course, was created to provide world-class services to the veterans that they serve and that our country owes a debt of gratitude to. Unfortunately, VA has fallen short of providing these services and that promise to veterans and their families through delays in processing a subset of education benefits. This hearing today will review how payment failures in the Department of Veteran Affairs Digital GI Bill program originated. Since August, estimates are up to 75,000 children or spouses of a veteran who has died, is missing, or have a permanent and total service-connected disability paid through the Dependents Education Assistance Program have had a delay in payments. This is not money that goes to the institution, like the post-9-11 GI Bill. Instead, the benefit goes directly to the student who then uses it to pay the institution and cover their expenses. Because of the payment delays, This subcommittee has heard horror stories about students not being able to make ends meet because of VA's mistake and jeopardize their enrollment in their college education. While I recognize that the situation was made worse by the government shutdown, VA has failed students by not paying them on time and refusing to communicate with the stakeholders along the way. This hearing today isn't about politics or partisan differences in games. It's about getting to the bottom of how this decision was made, who made the decision, who's at fault, and how we can move forward appropriately so that we can have proper authentication for Chapter 35 benefit cases.
Ms. Devlin, while you have only been at the VA a few months, and you and Mr. Smith have overseen this data reconciliation, thousands of claims that were not processed on time because of that, I expect the days of the status quo to end and the VA is holding those responsible for this failure accountable because the subcommittee plans to exercise that responsibility. Today, we will also examine how many students utilizing VA education programs were impacted. These delays have a real-world impact for dependents, education assistants, and post-911 GI Bill participants. Military-connected students shouldn't be put in financial hardship due to VA's technology and processes falling short on delivering for our veterans. While I'm new to Congress, I understand that this is at least the fourth time since the post-911 GI Bill was implemented that significant payment delays because of IT issues have impacted checks going out to veterans and other beneficiaries. If you're a student that's in my district or anywhere else in this country and you are facing delays in education payments from VA, please contact my office or this subcommittee to help work through your issues. My door is always open to help fellow veterans and we have to make sure we're working through this backlog. I expect this to be a productive hearing today. I hope to understand who is at fault for this crisis and who at VA will be taking accountability so that we can ensure this doesn't happen again. And I'll yield to the ranking member for his opening remarks as well.
Mr. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for pinch hitting with this subcommittee today. And thank you to our witnesses for joining. This is a critically overdue hearing today. And in all my years on this subcommittee, I've never felt as frustrated as I do at this moment. And one of the points of frustration is the request that I've made directly to expect a Senate-confirmed appointee to testify today, someone who can provide answers but also take responsibility for the failure to pay out Chapter 35 benefits on time. We don't have that. While I recognize that VBA doesn't have a confirmed undersecretary, it's abundantly clear from VA's stonewalling to multiple congressional inquiries and its written testimony that this administration has no intention of taking responsibility and instead is trying to shift our attention and the blame onto the previous administration. Our veterans and VA beneficiaries deserve a lot better. Forget about pointing fingers. VA responsibility is to serve veterans. When mistakes or unexpected developments occur, VA also has a responsibility to communicate with those same veterans. And veterans expect VA to work with Congress to solve the problem. As I've always said on this subcommittee, congressional oversight is important regardless of who is in the White House, which is why, Mr. Chairman, we and our veterans have come to expect public and involved supervision of what VA is doing or not doing, no matter which administration is in charge. We have not had that. In fact, in all my years on this committee, I've never experienced this level of stonewalling before. The Trump administration and its VA have deliberately failed to communicate with Congress and more importantly, the affected beneficiaries as they try to hide the mess that's been months in the making. VA has issued little to no public acknowledgement for months about the 75,000 beneficiaries whose benefits have been delayed. There have been minimal communications for months to schools and beneficiaries themselves. And there's been zero communication with Congress unless you can count the letter that we received back that didn't answer our questions at 5 45 yesterday three letters that were sent from members of this committee that went unanswered for a month and a half in fact va officials refused to formally acknowledge this problem until a briefing on december 5th that's december 5th va knew in september that it had a problem because they sent requirements to accenture to try to address the backlog
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