Basis: Figures are the Subtotal line (Gross Cost − Earned Revenue) from Treasury's Statements of Net Cost, an accrual measure — not the same as cash-basis outlays reported in the CBO/OMB budget documents. True cash-basis outlays would differ somewhat, especially for credit programs like student loans.
What was removed: The “(Gain)/Loss from Changes in Assumptions” column — the actuarial re-estimate of pension, OPEB, and veterans' benefit liabilities. That's what caused VA's $558.8B FY2023 spike and OPM's $180.4B FY2025 swing; both are gone from this table.
Governmentwide total: The total now shows the trend you'd expect — up each year — instead of the misleading decline in the prior net-cost table, which was purely an artifact of VA's one-time FY2023 actuarial loss.
Education: Education's negative FY2025 figure is not actuarial — Education had no actuarial adjustment in any of these three years (the “-” in that column). Its negative subtotal comes from credit reform accounting: gross cost includes downward re-estimates of expected student loan losses, which can push reported cost below zero in a given year even though cash is still going out the door. This is a separate accounting mechanism from the pension/benefits actuarial adjustments affecting VA and OPM.
Source: U.S. Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Statements of Net Cost, FY2023 (as originally reported), FY2024 (as originally reported), and FY2025 (as reported), fiscal.treasury.gov/accounting/us-financial-report. FY2024 figures shown here are as originally filed in the FY2024 report; a later restatement in the FY2025 report revised several entities (e.g., DoD, VA, Treasury) by small amounts.
Not shown: Entities with subtotal near zero or negative in all years (SEC, FDIC, Ex-Im Bank, TVA, etc.) and “All other entities,” which together account for roughly $20–50B/year and are omitted for readability.