The Office of Personnel Management could give the federal
student loan repayment program greater momentum by
building on its efforts to help agencies administer and
track it, the Government Accountability Office has said
in a new report.
It said the 10 executive agencies it looked at used the
program mainly as a broad-based retention tool for
critical recent hires, managing it centrally, while
others offered repayments on a case-by-case basis and
parsed program management out to individual components
— but that many agency officials think the tool is time
consuming and cumbersome to use.
Officials suggested that greater automation and
consolidation of program activities could make the
program more effective and easier to operate, according
to GAO-05-762.
It said OPM has provided agencies with guidance and
information for implementing the program, but officials
said they needed “more assistance on the technical
aspects of operating the program, more coordination in
sharing lessons learned in implementing it, and help
consolidating some of the program processes.”
OPM and the chief human capital officers council offer
an important role in assisting agencies with
implementing SLR programs — and could help agencies
assess program results and develop a common set of
program metrics, something GAO said needs to be developed
soon to determine the program’s impact.
However, OPM’s own data on use the student loan repayment
program for fiscal 2004 indicates an increasing number of
agencies have had success using it hire and retain
employees — such as the Department of State which says
it has used the incentives to fill hardship posts.
