The following was noted during the audit of Federal programs in accordance with UMB Uniform
Guidance.
Management proposes the following Corrective Action Plan:
Finding 2024-001: Notification of Title IV loan disbursements and the borrower’s right to cancel all or part
of the loan was not provided ap...
The following was noted during the audit of Federal programs in accordance with UMB Uniform
Guidance.
Management proposes the following Corrective Action Plan:
Finding 2024-001: Notification of Title IV loan disbursements and the borrower’s right to cancel all or part
of the loan was not provided appropriately.
Management’s View
The University agrees with this finding. Two separate issues contributed to the finding. Vanderbilt
identified both issues internally and implemented immediate measures to mitigate the impact to students
ensuring all notifications are properly delivered prospectively.
First, human error, primarily due to incomplete documentation and a new staff member running the
process, caused the issue of some loan notifications not being sent. However, the University
implemented quality control steps in July of 2024 to resolve the issue. These steps included providing
additional training to the staff member, correcting the documentation, and updating the scheduled run
control of the process to correctly identify all students with any federal loan disbursement. In addition, the
University implemented a quality control process creating a daily report, generated from multiple
PeopleSoft queries, that identifies any students who have a federal loan either initially or subsequently
disbursed who are missing the required notifications.
Second, a data merge issue combined with larger than usual volumes of students receiving loan
disbursements caused a processing error resulting in blank information on loan notifications. The initial
run in the spring semester included a larger than usual number of students with loan disbursements who
shared the same start date, whereas in comparison fall start dates generally are more varied. The
University identified this issue in January through manual reviews and manually sent subsequent
notifications to affected students. Corrective Action Plan
As a corrective measure, Vanderbilt took the following actions to address the identified issues:
1. Reviewed and updated documentation related to the Peoplesoft notification process to ensure
completeness and accuracy.
2. Provided additional staff training to the personnel responsible for running the notifications process
within Peoplesoft.
3. Created a quality review process to review a daily report from Peoplesoft that identifies any
student with a federal loan disbursement that is missing required notifications.
4. Updated queries related to communication generation to run more efficiently.
5. Modified the communication generation process to run nightly instead of weekly to ensure data
limits are appropriate to allow the process to run completely and accurately.
6. Created a quality review process to review a weekly report from PeopleSoft to timely identify any
missing information in student notifications.
Vanderbilt fully implemented the steps above by September 2024.
For follow-up questions and information, please contact Brent Tener, Assistant Provost and Executive
Director of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships at Vanderbilt University.