United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to Congressional Committees

August 1997 HIGHER EDUCATION

Verification Helps

Prevent Student Aid

Payments to Ineligible

Noncitizens

GAO/HEHS-97-153

GAO United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

Health, Education, and

Human Services Division

B-277450 

August 6, 1997

The Honorable James M. Jeffords

Chairman

The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Labor and Human Resources

United States Senate

The Honorable William F. Goodling

Chairman

The Honorable William L. Clay

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Education and the Workforce

House of Representatives

The Honorable Spencer Abraham

Chairman

The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Immigration

Committee on the Judiciary

United States Senate

The Honorable Lamar Smith

Chairman

The Honorable Melvin L. Watt

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims

Committee on the Judiciary

House of Representatives

The Department of Education administers a federal student financial aid

structure that in academic year 1997-98 will provide about $47 billion in

grants, loans, and other aid to 8.1 million recipients. Grants are provided

mainly through the Federal Pell Grant Program, under which a student

may receive up to $2,700 a year, depending on the demonstrated financial

need. Loans come from a number of programs, the largest of which are the

Federal Family Education Loan Program (the government guarantees

loans provided by private sector lenders) and the William D. Ford Federal

Direct Loan Program (the government makes loans directly to borrowers).

Page 1 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

Student eligibility criteria spelled out in title IV of the Higher Education

Act of 1965, as amended, require that only U.S. citizens and eligible

noncitizens receive federal student financial aid. Students who do not fall

into either of these two categories are considered ineligible noncitizens

and do not qualify for federal student financial aid. “Ineligible noncitizens”

is a broad category that includes illegal aliens (persons who are in the

United States in violation of U.S. immigration laws) as well as individuals

legally in the United States. They include entrants whose applications for

permanent residence are still pending, tourists, foreign students or

exchange visitors with temporary visas, and individuals with visas

pertaining to international organizations.

The fiscal year 1997 Department of Defense Appropriations Act contains

several immigration and welfare reform provisions, including a

reaffirmation of the citizenship-related eligibility criteria contained in the

Higher Education Act. A companion provision of the law requires us to

report to the appropriate committees of the Congress on the extent to

which illegal aliens are receiving postsecondary federal student financial

assistance. This report responds to that mandate.

In discussing the mandate with committee staff, we agreed to expand our

analysis to all “ineligible noncitizens” because information is not readily

available on specifically illegal aliens, a subcategory of this larger group. In

addition, we agreed to focus our work on describing Department of

Education processes intended to prevent applicants who are ineligible

noncitizens from receiving aid rather than on conducting an independent

audit of those who already received aid in order to determine their

eligibility. We therefore focused our work on the following questions:

• What processes ensure that ineligible noncitizens do not receive federal

student financial aid under title IV?

• How many potentially ineligible noncitizen applicants were identified

through these processes?

• What are the indications, if any, of the degree to which ineligible

noncitizens are receiving student financial aid despite these processes?

To answer these questions, we obtained information from the Department

of Education, which administers federal student aid programs; other

federal agencies involved in checking students’ eligibility for aid; and four

college financial aid administrators. Our methodology is explained in

detail in the appendix.

Page 2 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

Results in Brief The processes for preventing ineligible noncitizens from obtaining federal

student financial aid focus on identifying applicants whose eligibility is

questionable and referring their names to financial aid administrators at

postsecondary institutions (hereafter referred to as colleges) for

follow-up. The Department of Education uses two main screening

techniques to determine which applicants may be ineligible. It checks all

financial aid applicants for U.S. citizenship, using records of the Social

Security Administration (SSA). In addition, for applicants who are not U.S.

citizens, the Department checks the records of the Immigration and

Naturalization Service (INS) to determine if these applicants meet eligibility

criteria. Names of applicants who fail either of these screenings are sent to

financial aid administrators at colleges in which the applicant is interested

in enrolling. No federal student aid can be released until the applicant

provides proof of eligibility to the administrator. The Department’s

processes for verifying the citizenship status of all financial aid applicants

appear to be working reasonably well, as departmental monitoring has

found few implementation problems.

The INS and SSA screening techniques identified over 500,000 potentially

ineligible noncitizens in award year 1996-97 (July 1, 1996, through June 30,

1997), but it is possible that many of them ultimately provided proof of

their eligibility. According to the Department, of the 9.6 million financial

aid applicants in award year 1996-97, almost 460,000 (about 5 percent)

initially failed SSA screening—SSA could not confirm that an applicant was

a U.S. citizen—and another approximately 108,000 (1 percent) were

flagged for follow-up because INS could not confirm that they were eligible

noncitizens. The Department does not know how many of the flagged

applicants were subsequently found ineligible, because financial aid

administrators are required to neither inform the Department of the results

of their follow-up nor centrally maintain such information themselves. To

shed some light on the final outcome concerning an applicant’s eligibility,

we contacted financial aid administrators at four colleges with high

numbers of noncitizens in attendance. They estimated that virtually all the

applicants flagged through SSA and INS screening were ultimately able to

demonstrate their eligibility for student aid.

No one knows whether or how many ineligible noncitizens are

nonetheless managing to qualify for student financial aid. The

Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) has not opened and

resolved any investigations of applicants who falsified their citizenship

status and received aid since the SSA verification process was implemented

in 1996. However, OIG did, primarily in response to allegations of

Page 3 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

citizenship fraud, identify 26 cases in which ineligible noncitizens received

aid between 1993 and 1995, totaling about $332,000. Illegal aliens

constituted almost half of these recipients. The Department referred the

cases to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

Background From the Department’s perspective, all applicants for financial aid fall into

one of three categories of citizenship status: U.S. citizen, eligible

noncitizen, or ineligible noncitizen, as shown in figure 1. By law, only the

first two categories of applicants are eligible for title IV student financial

aid. The third category, which includes illegal aliens and others, is

ineligible for aid.1

 An applicant who is ineligible for federal student aid

may still be eligible for state or college aid.

Figure 1: Categories of Applicants by

Citizenship Status

An applicant uses the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form to

indicate whether he or she is a citizen, eligible noncitizen, or ineligible

noncitizen. The application form also notifies applicants that information

provided on the application is subject to computer matching programs

with other federal agencies to verify eligibility and to prevent fraud, waste,

1

An illegal alien is a person who may have entered the United States illegally (that is, without INS

inspection, undocumented, or by using fraudulent documentation) or legally (under a nonimmigrant

visa or other temporary conditions but subsequently violated the terms of the visa or other terms of

entry).

Page 4 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

and abuse. If information on the application indicates that the applicant is

a citizen or eligible noncitizen, the Department verifies that the applicant

is eligible for aid. If the information indicates that the applicant is an

ineligible noncitizen, the Department does not continue processing the

application and the applicant is rendered ineligible for federal student

financial aid, although he or she may be eligible for state or college aid.

OIG reported in 1994 that, while the Department verified the eligibility of

applicants claiming to be eligible noncitizens, it did not verify eligibility for

the vast majority of applicants who claimed U.S. citizenship.2

 As a result of

weak internal controls over the citizenship verification process, OIG

concluded that the Department awarded 45,000 potentially ineligible

noncitizens nearly $116 million in federal grants and loans in award year

1992-93. Although OIG did not verify that the financial aid recipients were

ineligible noncitizens, it recommended that the Department initiate a data

matching agreement with SSA to verify citizenship status for all federal

student aid applicants who claim U.S. citizenship. OIG also recommended

that the Department identify all applicants who fail the citizenship

verification process and notify them that their application has been

suspended until they can provide proof of U.S. citizenship to the

Department. The Department implemented both recommendations in

award year 1996-97.

Responsibility for

Identifying Ineligible

Applicants Is Shared

by the Department

and Colleges

During a given school year, all federal student financial aid applications

(about 10 million annually) go through the Department’s automated

Central Processing System. The system’s functions include matching

applicants against SSA and INS databases to make a preliminary

determination of an applicant’s eligibility as a U.S. citizen or eligible

noncitizen and producing the Student Aid Report (SAR). SARs are sent to the

applicant as well as all colleges he or she listed on the application. College

financial aid administrators use SARs to determine the type and amount of

federal financial aid the student is eligible to receive, as well as aid from

state, college, and other sources. The Department also monitors, through

its program reviews and independent audits, the procedures that college

financial aid administrators used to determine whether applicants were

citizens or eligible noncitizens.

2

Department of Education, Office of Inspector General, Ineligible, Non-U.S. Citizens Received $70

Million in Federal Pell Grants, ACN: 11-40000 (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 9, 1994).

Page 5 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

The Department Uses Two

Types of Matches to

Identify Potentially

Ineligible Applicants

To verify that an applicant is either a U.S. citizen or eligible noncitizen, the

Department conducts an electronic match in conjunction with SSA and INS,

in which citizenship information on a student’s application is matched

against SSA and INS databases. Applicants who pass the appropriate

matches are eligible for aid. Those who do not pass are flagged and must

provide satisfactory proof of their citizenship status to the college

financial aid administrator before eligibility can be determined.

All aid applicants who claim they are U.S. citizens or eligible noncitizens

undergo the SSA match to confirm their status. Applicants claiming eligible

noncitizenship must simultaneously undergo the INS match for

confirmation of their status, as shown in figure 2.3

 The SSA match,

implemented in 1996 in response to OIG’s recommendations, and the INS

match, implemented in 1989, are conducted each time a student applies for

aid. SSA and INS are responsible for providing match results to the

Department within 24 hours of its request for verification of an applicant’s

citizenship status.

3

Department officials stated that it is more efficient for the Central Processing System to submit all

applications for the SSA match, whether an applicant claims to be a citizen or eligible noncitizen. Since

applicants claiming to be eligible noncitizens are subject to both the SSA and INS matches, results of

the INS match take precedence over those of the SSA match.

Page 6 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

Figure 2: Overview of the SSA and INS

Matches

SSA Confirmation of

Citizenship

During the SSA match, the Department sends the student’s financial aid

application to SSA, which then compares the applicant’s Social Security

number, name, and date of birth with its data base. All three fields must

match SSA’s records before U.S. citizenship can be confirmed. If SSA

confirms that the applicant’s information matches that of a U.S. citizen, the

applicant is eligible to receive federal student financial aid. If SSA cannot

determine whether the applicant is a U.S. citizen—that is, if there is a

discrepancy in the applicant’s Social Security number, name, or date of

birth—the applicant must provide the college with proof of citizenship,

such as a birth certificate, passport, or naturalization certificate. The

financial aid administrator uses this additional information to decide what

action to take based on the applicant’s citizenship status. If the additional

information indicates that the applicant

• is a U.S. citizen (for example, the applicant was born abroad to U.S. citizen

parents and could be a U.S. citizen), no further match is performed and the

applicant qualifies for federal student financial aid;

• is an eligible noncitizen, he or she undergoes the INS match, remaining

ineligible for federal financial aid until INS confirms eligibility; or

Page 7 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

• is an ineligible noncitizen, he or she does qualify for federal student

financial aid.

INS Confirmation of Eligible

Noncitizenship

The INS match has two components: primary and secondary confirmation.

During primary confirmation, the Department sends the noncitizen

student’s application to INS, which then compares the applicant’s alien

registration number with its data base to confirm that the applicant is an

eligible noncitizen as claimed.4

 Applicants failing primary confirmation

must provide the college’s financial aid administrator proof of their

eligibility, such as an alien registration receipt card (commonly known as

a “green card”) or passport and must generally undergo secondary

confirmation.

A college initiates the secondary confirmation process by sending an

applicant’s documentary evidence (obtained during primary confirmation),

along with a completed Document Verification Request (INS Form G-845S)

to the local INS District Office to certify the authenticity of the documents.

The college must wait up to 15 business days for INS secondary

confirmation before determining the applicant’s eligibility.5

If secondary confirmation indicates that the applicant’s documents have

expired, appear to be counterfeit, or otherwise fail to support the

applicant’s citizenship eligibility, colleges notify the applicant that unless

he or she corrects the discrepancy with INS, the case will be submitted to

the Department’s OIG for investigation. Secondary confirmation is not

required if the college has no conflicting information on the applicant and

if the applicant provides the same documents that were used to pass

secondary confirmation in a prior award year, as long as the documents

are current.

College Financial Aid

Administrators Required to

Resolve Eligibility of

Flagged Applicants

If the Department questions an applicant’s eligibility as a result of an SSA or

INS match, the Department identifies this information on an SAR to call it to

the college financial aid administrator’s attention for follow-up. Once

financial aid administrators make the final eligibility determination, they

are required to note it in the applicant’s file and keep copies of evidence

4

INS assigns an alien registration number to each noncitizen alien legally residing in the United States

and those illegal alien who it identified.

5

If the college does not receive a determination from INS within 15 business days, the financial aid

administrator may review the file to determine whether the applicant is still eligible based on his or her

documentary evidence. As long as the college has no conflicting information on the applicant, the

applicant may be eligible for federal student financial aid. The administrator must note in the

applicant’s file that INS did not respond in 15 days.

Page 8 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

they used in making their determination where these can be reviewed by

program reviewers and auditors. The administrators are not required to

report this information to the Department or to maintain it centrally at the

college.

The Department does not hold the college liable for an error in an

eligibility determination if, in making that determination, the college had

no conflicting data on that applicant and relied on

• the SAR indicating the applicant met the eligibility requirements for federal

student aid,

• INS’ determination that the applicant was an eligible noncitizen, or

• documents from the applicant proving that he or she is an eligible

noncitizen if INS did not provide a determination within 15 business days.

If the financial aid administrator determines an applicant’s eligibility

without relying on one of these types of documents, the college could be

held responsible for repaying federal financial aid funds to the

Department; otherwise, the applicant is held responsible. For example,

applicants who fraudulently filled out the application would be held

responsible.

Department Monitoring

Finds Few Implementation

Problems

The Department monitors both the financial aid administrators’

determinations of applicants’ eligibility and the two automated match

processes. The Department has found few problems in its monitoring of

financial aid administrators’ determinations to help ensure that they were

made in accordance with established Department procedures.

This monitoring includes an evaluation of the college’s procedures for

determining student eligibility. For example, the reviewer or auditor

checks a sample of student financial aid files to determine whether

financial aid administrators initiated and documented subsequent

verification of student applicants who were flagged by the INS match. In

reviewing a sample of student financial aid files since 1989, when matching

was first implemented, independent auditors and program reviewers found

that financial aid administrators made erroneous student eligibility

decisions at about 3 percent of colleges audited or reviewed. The

Department held these colleges liable for any federal financial aid

inappropriately awarded to the students.

Page 9 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

The Department’s annual evaluations of computer programs used to

perform the automated SSA and INS matches indicate that they are working

as intended. In evaluating the matches, the Department recognized that

their value is dependent on, and possibly limited by, the accuracy of SSA

and INS data bases. To illustrate, according to the computer matching

agreement between the Department and SSA, information in the SSA data

base may be less than 50 percent current.

The Department’s evaluations attempt to ensure that the matches are

properly identifying potentially ineligible applicants. The Department’s

Central Processing System performs routine edits on all applications to

identify incomplete, invalid, or inconsistent citizenship-related

information. The edits check to determine, for example, if citizenship is

indicated, if a numerically valid alien registration number has been

provided, or if the reported Social Security number is found in SSA’s data

base. The Department evaluates citizenship-related edits for a sample of

applications by examining how frequently they occur and how frequently

applicants correct the information.

Match Processes

Identify Applicants as

Potentially Ineligible

Noncitizens

The SSA and INS matches flag potentially ineligible noncitizens, but the

Department does not—and is not required to—know how many of these

applicants were subsequently found by financial aid administrators to be

ineligible for aid. However, financial aid administrators we interviewed

estimated that, based on their experience in resolving flagged cases,

almost no flagged applicants were found to be ineligible noncitizens.

Department statistics show that as of March 15, 1997, about 460,000 of the

9.6 million financial aid applications (nearly 5 percent) received in award

year 1996-97 were flagged by the SSA match. SSA was generally unable to

confirm that these applicants were either U.S. citizens or eligible

noncitizens because of a discrepancy in an applicant’s reported Social

Security number, name, or date of birth. The most common discrepancy

was in the applicant’s name, occurring in about 83 percent of cases,

followed by date of birth (12 percent) and Social Security number (5

percent). Further, the Department does not know how many of these

applicants claimed to be eligible noncitizens and therefore also underwent

an INS match. Approximately 108,000 of the 9.6 million applicants (about

1 percent) were flagged by INS’ match because they failed primary

confirmation.

Page 10 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

The SSA and INS matches are the first step in identifying potentially

ineligible noncitizens by flagging their applications. The match results do

not show whether college financial aid administrators subsequently

qualified these applicants for student aid. To provide some indication of

what administrators were finding at colleges, we contacted four financial

aid officials at colleges that we previously identified with large numbers of

eligible noncitizen Pell grant recipients in academic year 1992-93.6

Collectively, financial aid administrators at these colleges estimated that

virtually all applicants identified by SSA or INS matches are able to prove

their eligibility and qualify for aid. They also confirmed that the most

common reason for an SSA flag was a discrepancy in the applicant’s name.

Estimates provided by financial aid administrators were based on their

observations and experience in processing aid applications. None of the

financial aid offices we contacted maintains this information centrally.

No Comprehensive

Studies Done on

Financial Aid to

Ineligible Noncitizens

and No OIG Findings

of Aid Disbursed

Since 1996

Our literature search did not identify any studies or audits that examined

whether federal student financial aid was provided to ineligible

noncitizens. While OIG’s only audit of student financial aid to ineligible

noncitizens was in award year 1992-93, it also investigates cases brought to

its attention by colleges and others suspecting citizenship fraud.

As a result of these investigations, all OIG cases resolved to date involve

ineligible noncitizens who received financial aid before the SSA citizenship

verification process was implemented in 1996. Responding mainly to

allegations by colleges since award year 1992-93, OIG investigated and

resolved 26 cases in which ineligible noncitizens were inappropriately

awarded approximately $322,000 in federal student financial aid. Illegal

aliens constituted almost half of these 26 recipients and received about

$118,000 in aid. For the 6 other cases, it was unclear whether the person

was an illegal alien because information was not available to indicate the

person’s citizenship status. In all 26 cases, the student applied for and

received financial aid before 1996, when the SSA match became

operational. Most of the cases occurred in California, the state with the

largest population of eligible noncitizen Pell grant recipients, and all cases

were referred to the Department of Justice for prosecution.

6

Colleges with the highest numbers of eligible noncitizen Pell grant recipients are identified in Higher

Education: Selected Information on Student Financial Aid Received by Legal Immigrants

(GAO/HEHS-96-7, Nov. 24, 1995).

Page 11 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
B-277450 

Conclusions The Department of Education has implemented two automated matches of

student aid applicant citizenship information with SSA and INS to help

ensure that ineligible noncitizens do not receive federal student financial

aid. The Department’s policy prohibits awarding financial aid unless the

applicant furnishes proof of eligibility to the college financial aid

administrator.

By verifying the citizenship status of all federal student financial aid

applicants, the SSA and INS match processes appear to be a reasonable way

of helping prevent student financial aid being awarded to ineligible

noncitizens. In addition, the notice to student aid applicants that the

citizenship status provided on the application is subject to computer

matching may deter applicants from seeking to fraudulently receive

financial aid.

Agency Comments The Department of Education reviewed a draft of this report and had no

formal comments, although it provided several technical suggestions that

we incorporated as appropriate.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Education,

Commissioner of INS, Commissioner of SSA, and others who are interested.

Please call me at (202)512-7014 if you or your staff have any questions

about this report. Major contributors included Joseph J. Eglin, Jr.,

Assistant Director; Joan A. Denomme; Charles M. Novak; Meeta Sharma;

and Stanley G. Stenersen.

Carlotta C. Joyner

Director, Education and

 Employment Issues

Page 12 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
Page 13 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
Appendix 

Scope and Methodology

To determine the Department of Education’s policies and processes for

verifying that only citizens and eligible noncitizens receive federal student

financial aid, we contacted officials at and reviewed pertinent documents

from the Department’s Office of Postsecondary Education, SSA, and INS.

We requested information on the number of ineligible noncitizens from the

Department. However, the Department’s information allowed us to report

only the number of applicants who initially failed SSA and INS matches but

not the number of applicants who were subsequently disqualified for aid

by college financial aid administrators. We therefore contacted financial

aid administrators at colleges with the largest number of eligible

noncitizen Pell grant recipients for each of the five principal types of

colleges (as we reported in 1995): public 2-year, public 4-year, private

2-year, private 4-year, and proprietary.7

 We previously identified these

colleges in our 1995 report on student aid provided to legal immigrants.8

Four of the five college financial aid administrators responded and

provided estimates of the number of ineligible noncitizens based on

anecdotal information. They said that they do not routinely collect such

statistics.

We did not independently verify statistics computed by the Department

using information in INS and SSA data bases or verify information provided

by college financial aid officials.

We examined summary reports of Department program reviews and audits

since 1989 that indicated that 343 colleges had been cited for improperly

determining that a student was a citizen or eligible noncitizen. The

summary reports did not contain details on the number of applications or

students or the amount of financial aid involved. Although a large number

of colleges were cited for deficiencies, we did not examine individual

program reviews or audit reports because most were out-of-date in

relation to the rather recent introduction of the SSA match.

To determine whether any studies had been done on student financial aid

provided to illegal aliens, we conducted a literature search, contacted

immigration research organizations, and spoke with officials at higher

education boards in the seven states with the most eligible noncitizen Pell

7

Higher Education: Selected Information on Student Financial Aid Received by Legal Immigrants

(GAO/HEHS-96-7, Nov. 24, 1995).

8

In 1995, we reported that legal immigrants constituted about 4 million, or 10 percent, of students who

received Pell grants totaling $662 million, or about 11 percent, of the total $6.2 billion in Pell grant aid

in school year 1992-93.

Page 14 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
Appendix 

Scope and Methodology

grant recipients. We also contacted OIG offices at the Department of

Education, SSA, and the Department of Justice. Only the Department of

Education’s OIG maintained this information. We queried the Department’s

OIG data base, the Investigative Case Tracking System, and identified 26

cases involving citizenship fraud that had been opened after award year

1992-93 and closed as of April 30, 1997, and in which financial aid was

actually disbursed to the students. We reviewed each case file to obtain

additional details, including the source of the case, the nature of the

citizenship fraud, whether the individual involved was an illegal alien, the

amount of student financial aid and date it was disbursed, and the states in

which the cases occurred.

We performed our work between January and May 1997 in accordance

with generally accepted government auditing standards.

(104877) Page 15 GAO/HEHS-97-153 Student Aid to Ineligible Noncitizens
Ordering Information

The first copy of each GAO report and testimony is free.

Additional copies are $2 each. Orders should be sent to the

following address, accompanied by a check or money order

made out to the Superintendent of Documents, when

necessary. VISA and MasterCard credit cards are accepted, also.

Orders for 100 or more copies to be mailed to a single address

are discounted 25 percent.

Orders by mail:

U.S. General Accounting Office

P.O. Box 6015

Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015

or visit:

Room 1100

700 4th St. NW (corner of 4th and G Sts. NW)

U.S. General Accounting Office

Washington, DC

Orders may also be placed by calling (202) 512-6000 

or by using fax number (301) 258-4066, or TDD (301) 413-0006.

Each day, GAO issues a list of newly available reports and

testimony. To receive facsimile copies of the daily list or any

list from the past 30 days, please call (202) 512-6000 using a

touchtone phone. A recorded menu will provide information on

how to obtain these lists.

For information on how to access GAO reports on the INTERNET,

send an e-mail message with "info" in the body to:

info@www.gao.gov

or visit GAO’s World Wide Web Home Page at:

http://www.gao.gov

PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER
United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548-0001

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use $300

Address Correction Requested

Bulk Rate

Postage & Fees Paid

GAO

Permit No. G100