2024-002: Eligibility
Cause: During our testing, we identified that the College’s internal control policies were not effectively designed to ensure funds are disbursed to eligible students.
Context: During inquiries with management, the College identified four students that were awarded and disburs...
2024-002: Eligibility
Cause: During our testing, we identified that the College’s internal control policies were not effectively designed to ensure funds are disbursed to eligible students.
Context: During inquiries with management, the College identified four students that were awarded and disbursed Pell, SEOG, and Direct Loans, who were subsequently determined to be ineligible for the programs.
View of the responsible official: MACC does not agree with this finding. MACC has many measures in place to ensure funds are disbursed to eligible students, including verifying identity when enrolling degree seeking students in classes each semester and reviewing high school completion status with a high school transcript, as well as reviewing ISIRs, and other documentation to determine eligibility for federal student aid.
While preparing disbursements for fall 2024, the Financial Aid Office identified some odd entries on some ISIRs, which prompted us to review various patterns in admissions documents. MACC believes the students in question may be cases of stolen identities. However, this is only suspicion at this time because when the students in question enrolled in the summer 2024 semester they provided identification, submitted high school transcripts from valid high schools, completed FAFSAs which resulted with valid ISIRs (in one case the student submitted Verification (V4) documentation), submitted loan data sheets and completed entrance counseling via Zoom.
The students in question were referred to the Office of Inspector General at the U. S. Department of Education on 10/15/2024; no follow-up has been received from OIG as of 01/15/2025. MACC has also discussed this case with Kathy Feith, Region 7 Branch Chief, of the U. S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid.
During an interview with an auditor from CLA, MACC disclosed the situation described above to the auditor when questioned about any potential fraud cases.
MACC firmly believes all internal control policies were followed to ensure funds were disbursed to eligible students. At the time of disbursement, there was no indication these students were not eligible. As noted above, the OIG has not determined that these are in fact ineligible students; therefore, MACC does not believe it should return funds based on suspicion of ineligibility.
As a result of these findings, MACC has added new steps to provide an additional layer of protection, including verifying images of state drivers licenses or other forms of identity, and development of guidelines for staff to follow if they have any suspicion of fraud.
Name(s) of the contact person(s) responsible for corrective action: Amy Hager
Planned completion date for corrective action plan: We expect the plan will be an ongoing effort to ensure compliance.