Troy J. Mueller, a managing director at MITRE Corp., testifies at a House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Washington. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — A $2.3 billion project to modernize and operate the GI Bill benefits system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs has encountered delays, glitches and cost overruns as technicians overhauled an “extremely old IT system” that relied on outdated software and a 1970s-era mainframe.
Troy J. Mueller, a managing director at MITRE Corp., offered that assessment of the multiyear effort to improve the GI Bill benefits website and implement fully automated processing of veterans education benefits.
“The digital GI Bill program is large and complex — and inevitably encountered challenges, unanticipated complexities, and the realization of risks that have led to schedule delays and increased costs,” Mueller said Wednesday during a joint subcommittee hearing of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
MITRE Corp. has been responsible for providing lifecycle cost estimates for the project.
Titled “Contracting Challenges and the Need for Acquisition Reform,” the joint hearing was held by the House VA subcommittees on technology modernization and economic opportunity.
The purpose was to receive a status update on the technology project to reengineer the online education benefits system and to address the higher costs and delays.
VA officials said the website updates have resulted in 16 million claims getting processed in the past five years, delivering $43 billion in tuition assistance, housing stipends and other benefits to veterans who are students.
As of December 2025, the VA was automating and delivering 65% of all claims without any staff interaction required. Human labor has been a major driver of costs in managing GI Bill education benefits, said Justin Parke, managing director at Accenture Federal Services, which is helping to implement the changes.
Kenneth Smith, executive director for education service at the Veterans Benefits Administration, testifies at a House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, in Washington. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
Kenneth Smith, executive director for education service at the Veterans Benefits Administration, acknowledged that the agency initially underestimated the project’s scope and complexity, which led to higher costs and delays.
Modernizing the platform for GI Bill claims was originally projected to cost $500 million in fiscal 2021 but has ballooned to an estimated $2.3 billion projected through fiscal 2031.
The calculation used a base year of fiscal 2021 and projected costs over a 10-year period, Mueller said.
Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., said the system redevelopment has been hurt by poor contract oversight.
“There hasn’t been a successful launch of an IT system at the VA for as long as we can remember,” said Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., chairman of the technology modernization subcommittee.
Veterans Education Success, a nonprofit that helps veterans with their GI benefits, cited a technical problem in October 2025 that led to delayed payments for housing to thousands of students.
The payments, known as Chapter 35 benefits, are for students who are the children and spouses of fully disabled veterans and service members who died in the line of duty or later from a service-connected condition.
“The recent debacle involving Chapter 35 benefits had the largest negative impact I have witnessed since the rollout of the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2009-10 and the initial issues with paper checks,” wrote Joshua Rider, executive director of the Center for Adult and Veteran Services at Kent State University.
Rider’s comments were included in written testimony submitted to the panel.
Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., said the VA has broken trust with families over the delayed Chapter 35 payments. He faulted the VA for lack of communication with students and families to inform them of the technical problems and keep them updated on payment delivery.
Smith said most Chapter 35 supplemental claims are now fully automated, which should allow for quicker response times.
But technical glitches affecting payments continue to be a problem for some students, according to Veterans Education Success.
“While VA always has an excuse for the error, the impact of these debacles falls on veterans and their families, who are forced to shoulder the burden of VA’s repeated failures,” said William Hubbard, a vice president at Veterans Education Success.
The VA needs to put into place more safeguards to prevent further delays, the organization said.
