Disbursements to Ineligible Students
Planned Corrective Action:
While the Office of Financial Aid sought to replicate controls that were in place within the
legacy system, the noted disbursements to ineligible students were a direct result of the
system conversion to Workday.
The following measures ...
Disbursements to Ineligible Students
Planned Corrective Action:
While the Office of Financial Aid sought to replicate controls that were in place within the
legacy system, the noted disbursements to ineligible students were a direct result of the
system conversion to Workday.
The following measures have been or will be taken to prevent such disbursements in the
future.
Transfer credit evaluation (prior degree and TEACH grant)
To ensure students with prior bachelor’s degrees are not awarded incorrectly, the office will
coordinate with the Registrar’s Office to ensure that all undergraduate students with a prior
degree are flagged immediately after transcript evaluation. The transfer credit coordinator
will notify the Office of Financial Aid. If the student’s ISIR does not reflect they have earned
a prior bachelor’s degree the student will be notified and the ISIR will be corrected. Existing
award programming prevents students with ISIRs indicating a prior degree from being
awarded aid for which they are ineligible.
To ensure transfer students with GPAs that do not meet the requirements to receive TEACH
grant are not awarded incorrectly, the office will conduct a review of all transfer students
awarded TEACH grant once all their transcripts have been received to ensure they meet
transfer GPA eligibility requirements.
Loans in excess of limits
To ensure students are not awarded loans in excess of their aggregate limits, the financial aid
operations department has begun to proactively review NSLDS data for any student that is
seen to be approaching loan limits. When an ISIR indicates an eligibility amount that is less
than a single year’s maximum award, the operations department reviews NSLDS and
overrides aggregate totals as needed to ensure students are not awarded over their limits. We
are going to work with our post-implementation consulting partner, Alchemy, to determine
other best practices within Workday.
Pell Grant awarded for courses that do not apply to student’s program of study
To ensure students are not awarded Pell grant for courses that do not apply to their program
of study, the office developed reports to compare the financial aid load used to calculate the
award with the financial aid loan within the student’s program of study. While these reports
were in use during the 2022-2023 award year, there were some academic programs that had
to be updated because of issues with their initial setup. Those changes have abated in this
second academic year, but the financial aid technician will conduct a final check in the last
week of the 7A and 7B terms so any changes to program of study load status can be
reevaluated.
Person Responsible for Corrective Action Plan: Michael Sapienza, Associate Vice
President of Enrollment Services
Anticipated Date of Completion: Necessary reports and calculations will be developed
prior to December 1, 2023. Review will continue on a continuous basis.