Finding Text
Finding 2024-001: Significant Deficiency - Enrollment Reporting
ALN: 84.268 Federal Direct Loan Program; 84.063 Federal Pell Grant Program
Federal Award Identification Number: N/A
Award Year: July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024
Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Pass Through Entity: Not applicable
Criteria: 34 CFR 685.309(b) states that upon receipt of an enrollment report from the Secretary, a school must update all information included in the report and return the report to the Secretary in the manner and format prescribed by the Secretary and within the timeframe prescribed by the Secretary. Unless it expects to submit its next updated enrollment report to the Secretary within the next 60 days, a school must notify the Secretary within 30 days after the date the school discovers that a loan under Title IV of the Act was made to or on behalf of a student who was enrolled or accepted for enrollment at the school, and the student has ceased to be enrolled on at least a half-time basis or failed to enroll on at least a half-time basis for the period for which the loan was intended.
Condition: For three students out of the 25 tested, the College failed to report the enrollment status within the required timeframe to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS). The sample was not a statistically valid sample.
Cause: The College identified that there was an error in capturing the reporting status for students that re-enrolled in the College and the related reporting to the NSLDS.
Effect: The accuracy of Title IV student loan records depends heavily on the accuracy of the enrollment information reported by the schools. If an institution does not review, update, and verify student enrollment statuses, effective dates of the enrollment status, and other information, then the Title IV student loan records will be inaccurate, which impacts student loan repayments.
Questioned Costs: None.
Recommendation: It is recommended that policies and procedures are put in place to verify that the correct effective dates and status changes are reported to NSLDS within required time frames, as well as create accurate reports internally to track all students' whose status changed and verify against the roster submitted to NSLDS. This could include a review of withdrawal or graduation dates compared to the effective dates reported to NSLDS to make sure they are accurate.
Management Response: The Registrar's Office will incorporate the recommendations to fix the deficiency to create and deploy a more timely report to identify students who re-enroll at the College. It should be noted that since the College is implementing this change as early as March 2025, there may be a continuation of the deficiency from July 1, 2024 through March 31, 2025.