2022-003 NSLDS Reporting Recommendation: We recommend the University review its reporting procedures to ensure that students? statuses are accurately reported to NSLDS as required by regulations. Explanation of disagreement with audit finding: There is no disagreement with the audit finding. Actio...
2022-003 NSLDS Reporting Recommendation: We recommend the University review its reporting procedures to ensure that students? statuses are accurately reported to NSLDS as required by regulations. Explanation of disagreement with audit finding: There is no disagreement with the audit finding. Action taken in response to finding: please see below Name(s) of the contact person(s) responsible for corrective action: Elizabeth Vestal, Registrar. Planned completion date for corrective action plan: December 31, 2022 with continued auditing after. Four areas of deficiency have been identified within our current enrollment reporting process. Specifically, 1) the university did not correct errors within ten days, 2) the program begin date reported to NSLDS (National Student Loan Data System) does not match the university?s records, 3) the student?s program enrollment effective date is incorrectly reported to NSLDS and 4) status changes were not certified and/or received within sixty days. In response to your findings, the Registrar?s Office has created a plan of action to remedy the errors. The enrollment reporting process has new leadership at the university. The findings from the new audit team will be corrected. The corrections will require the university to change current behaviors, practices, and reports. Findings two and three are connected to the program start date entered into Colleague. Currently, when processing a program add or change in Colleague (student information system), the program start date defaults to the first day of the month of the start of the term. In the past admissions and advising have been instructed to enter the upcoming term date as the program start date in the SACP (Student Academic Program) screen of Colleague. Unfortunately, this is not being done consistently and several teams have reverted to using the default date and the issue was not identified prior to reporting. The following outlines the proposed corrective action plan: 1) New and re-entry/re-admit students, program changes, or change of residency a. Effective for student programs starting in Fall 2 2022, the program start date in Colleague will match the start date of the upcoming term or end date of prior term. The operator will manually correct the default date to mirror the first day of the start term or end date of prior term in Colleague. i. If there is a potential issue with the date of the upcoming term, the Registrar?s Office must be consulted prior to committing to an alternate date. 2) Active continuing students a. Phase 1: The Fall 1 2022 census report will be used to generate a list of all currently active students. Each student will be manually reviewed to verify the program effective start date reflects the start of term at the university or start of term for the next declared program/major. Although the start date of a program change is not required to match the start of term for enrollment reporting purposes, this will eliminate processing confusion and increase consistency. i. The first phase of corrections will be completed by October 24, 2022. b. Phase 2: Prior census reports will be used to capture students who had been active in terms from Summer 1 2021 to Fall 1 2022. The program effective start dates will be reviewed and corrected as needed. i. The second phase of corrections will be completed by December 31, 2022. 3) Communication a. Issue a Registrar Communication memorandum (RegCom) outlining the new expectations for assigning the program effective start date, auditing schedule, and implications of errors to the following within the university, by October 24, 2022. i. Registrar team ii. Admissions operations iii. Deans, Chairs, and Program Directors iv. Campus success coaches, faculty advisors, and coordinators v. Center directors and staff 4) Inactive students (have not attended since Summer 1 2021) a. The program effective start date of students who have not been active at the university since the Summer 1 2021 term will be reviewed and updated upon re-entry/re-admit to the university (See bullet 1 above). 5) Report/Audit a. Coordinate with the Department of Information Technology (DoIT) to create a SQL report to pull student information from Colleague, including the student?s start term and declared program effective start date. b. The Registrar?s Office will audit the report weekly to ensure all dates are compliant and accurate prior to generating the enrollment file. 6) Colleague functionality a. Explore the possibility of amending the default date assigned by Colleague. i. This is restricted by the capabilities of the SIS. If unable to amend, we would continue with manual process noted above. Findings one and four relate to the timing of file submission and correcting roster errors. The Registrar will review the university?s reporting procedures and schedule to ensure that student statuses are accurately reported through the servicer to NSLDS within sixty days and errors are corrected within ten days. To do so, the Registrar will: 1) Establish an annual schedule to report student statuses every thirty to sixty days. a. Attention will be given to term dates, withdraw deadlines, as well as weekends and calendar holidays. 2) Create a sub-schedule of timing for correcting errors. This schedule should account for days necessary for the servicer and NSLDS to process the data. 3) Audit the SCHER5 and other reports weekly to ensure any remaining errors are corrected within ten days. By taking the above actions, Saint Leo will have processes in place to establish and maintain procedures to reasonably achieve compliance with NSLDS regulations providing timely and accurate data and audit the effectiveness of our data collection and reporting procedures. The university, specifically the Registrar?s Office, is committed to submitting complete, accurate, and timely enrollment data for Saint Leo University students.