Audit: Talent Search Participation Overstated

A Department of Education grant program that helps disadvantaged high school students go to college failed to properly guide and monitor grantees, which overstated the number of participants during the 2001-02 award year, according to an audit by the department’s inspector general’s office.

The audit raps the TRIO program, administered by the Education Department’s office of postsecondary education, for its records on Talent Search, which provides counseling to disadvantaged youths who have the potential to enroll in college. President Bush’s proposed fiscal 2006 budget would eliminate all of the Talent Search program’s $145 million in funding. The administration is proposing to shift the funding from Talent Search and two other TRIO programs, Upward Bound and GEAR UP, to its proposed High School Initiative.

The audit report warns that the practice of overstating Talent Search participation could be “widespread” because of the Education Department’s failure to maintain proper records and...