UPDATE, Sept. 22, 2015: This story updates with new information on proposed legislation.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has vowed to increase scrutiny of unaccredited schools that received federal funds through the GI Bill and to review state criteria that allow such schools to benefit financially from the country’s largest educational program for military veterans.

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The move came in response to an investigation by Reveal, which found that as many as 2,000 unaccredited institutions – including schools that teach  blackjack, dog grooming and masturbation – have received GI Bill funds at a cost of more than $260 million since 2009.

Compliance reviews have been performed on three of the schools highlighted in Reveal’s July investigation: the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, Vitality College of Healing Arts near San Diego and Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas. The VA said a fourth school, the Oklahoma Baptist College and Institute, was not reviewed because no VA beneficiaries had been enrolled in “several years.”

Christina Mulka, a spokeswoman for Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the senator would press the VA to report back on what it found during those reviews.

But even as the agency tries to assure elected officials that it will do more, its undersecretary for benefits, Allison Hickey, has suggested that the VA’s authority could be limited.

“There is no legal basis to refuse to approve or to disapprove a previously approved program solely on its non-accredited status,” Hickey wrote in a Sept. 4 letter to Durbin.

As vice chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee on defense, Durbin was among eight Senate Democrats who signed a letter in July urging the VA to respond to the Reveal investigation.

The group said the story had exposed “a number of educationally questionable, and in some instances morally repugnant, institutions that have inexplicably received VA education benefits.” They said that the VA’s oversight was especially needed to protect taxpayer money and the country’s military veterans from “unscrupulous entities.”

Hickey responded in her letter saying the VA is taking several actions, including increasing its focus on unaccredited schools during the next round of compliance surveys in 2016 and reviewing the criteria states use to evaluate course offerings and the “good reputation and character” of administrators, instructors, directors and owners of a school.

But she noted that the VA “is prohibited, by law, from exercising any supervision or control over the activities of the SAAs, except during the annual SAA performance evaluations,” referring to the state approving agencies that conduct about 5,000 compliance surveys every year and allow schools onto the list of institutions eligible for GI Bill funds.

During a hearing convened last week by the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, however, Joseph Wescott, legislative director of the National Association of State Approving Agencies, underscored the challenges its member agencies face.

“The current statutory requirements for VA to conduct compliance surveys represent an almost impossible mission, given present resources,” Wescott said.

Bipartisan legislation introduced in August would restrict state approval of GI Bill assistance to programs that meet the state’s instructional curriculum licensing or certification requirements. For professional programs, only programs approved by the appropriate licensing board or agency would be eligible.

This story was edited by Amy Pyle and copy edited by Nikki Frick.

Bobby Caina Calvan can be reached at bcalvan@gmail.com.

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Bobby Caina Calvan is the collaborations editor for Reveal. He was most recently director of operations for The Fund for Investigative Journalism, a Washington-based nonprofit that awards grants to freelance and independent investigative journalists. He thrives on watchdog journalism. He's worked in some of the country's best newsrooms, including The Associated Press, The Boston Globe, The Sacramento Bee and the Detroit Free Press. He's covered the war in Iraq, the national debate over health care, the 2012 presidential race and other high-profile elections.

While Calvan has worked in some of the country's biggest news outlets, his roots are firmly in local news. His career transcends platforms, and he has produced stories for print, digital, radio and television. He spent a year on a journalism diversity initiative in Nebraska called The Heartland Project, where he spearheaded collaborations with newsrooms across the state to enhance coverage of communities of color and LGBT issues. Inclusive journalism is in his DNA, and so is his strong advocacy for mentoring the next generation of journalists.

Calvan grew up on a dairy farm at the foot of the Ko'olau Mountains in Waimanalo, Hawaii – which might explain why he spent his first year of college at New York University and followed his sense of adventure into a career in journalism. He completed his college career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in legal studies. He is based in Reveal's Emeryville, California, office.