Finding Text
Assistance Listing Number, Federal Agency, and Program Name - U.S. Department of Education, Student Financial Assistance Cluster - ALN 84.268, Federal Direct Student Loans; ALN 84.063, Federal Pell Grant Program
Federal Award Identification Number and Year - P268K222849, P063P212849
Pass through Entity - N/A
Finding Type - Significant deficiency
Repeat Finding - No
Criteria - Changes in a student's status are required to be reported accurately to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) or the guarantee agency (Pell, 34 CFR Section 690.83(b)(2); Direct Loan, 34 CFR Section 685.309).
Condition - The College did not accurately report the effective date of a students' status changes to the NSLDS or the correct status change to the NSLDS.
Questioned Costs - N/A
Identification of How Questioned Costs Were Computed - N/A
Context - Of the 60 students selected for enrollment reporting testing, the effective date of the status change or the correct status for 4 students was not accurately reported.
Cause and Effect - The College prepares enrollment reporting based on known student status changes. The College did not report the correct effective date for 3 students and the correct status for 1 student, resulting in a violation of accurate reporting requirements within the NSLDS. The College did not have a control in place to verify that the correct effective date was reported to NSLDS in the required time frame.
Recommendation - The University should implement controls to ensure that the accurate effective date or status is reported to the NSLDS.
Views of Responsible Officials and Corrective Action Plan - Before pulling the enrolled student list for submission to the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), the director of financial aid will run a debugging process created by the financial aid and information technology teams to identify any inaccuracies in student enrollment status to be easily identified and corrected. Implementing this debugging process in advance of finalizing the NSC Student Enrollment Report file will ensure all data submitted to NSC is accurate.