A Maryland college spent nearly $80,000 in federal grant money on “numerous student trips to locations such as resorts and amusement parks,” according to a new U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
The college is just one of several in a report – Minority Serving Institutions: Management Attention to Long-standing Concerns Needed to Improve Education’s Oversight of Grant Programs – that found a series of “questionable” expenditures at colleges and universities that primarily serve minorities and low-income students.
The money was supposed to be spent on improving academic quality, student support services, institutional management and fiscal stability. Instead, the Maryland college that took students to resorts and amusement parks – identified only as “Grantee D” – also spent $6,000 on a desk and chair and nearly $4,600 on an airplane global positioning system even though the school doesn’t own a plane … at least not yet.
The report recommends closer monitoring and tighter controls on spending.
