Finding Text
Finding 2025-001: NSLDS Reporting Requirements (50000) This is not a repeat finding. Program Identification: Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Education Program Names: Federal Pell Grant Program (AL No. 84.063) Criteria: OMB Compliance Supplement, OMB No. 1845‐0035 – Institutions are required to report enrollment information under the Pell grant and the Direct and FFEL loan programs via the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS). Institutions must review, update, and verify student enrollment statuses, program information, and effective dates that appear on the Enrollment Reporting Roster file or on the Enrollment Maintenance page of the NSLDS Professional Access (NSLDSFAP) website which the financial aid administrator can access for the auditor. The data on the institutions’ Enrollment Reporting Roster, or Enrollment Maintenance page, is what NSLDS has as the most recently certified enrollment information. There are two categories of enrollment information: “Campus Level” and “Program Level”, both of which need to be reported accurately and have separate record types. The NSLDS Enrollment Reporting Guide provides the requirements and guidance for reporting enrollment details using the NSLDS Enrollment Reporting Process. Condition: During testing over the NSLDS reporting requirements, we noted four of twenty-five student certification dates were not within 60 days of the date of change reported on NSLDS. Context: The District disbursed financial aid to approximately 587 students that required student enrollment and program enrollment reporting to NSLDS. A representative selection of twenty-five students were haphazardly selected for testing of compliance requirements. Questioned Costs: None. Cause: Lack of review process to ensure that student certification dates are reported on NSLDS in a timely manner. Effect: The District is not in compliance with the Federal enrollment reporting requirements described in the OMB Compliance Supplement. Recommendation: The District should implement a process to review, update, and verify student enrollment statuses, program information, and effective dates that appear on the Enrollment Reporting Roster file or on the Enrollment Maintenance page of the NSLDS Professional Access (NSLDSFAP) website. Views of Responsible Officials: The Downey Adult School (DAS) concurs with the audit finding and to prevent future occurrences, the school has purchased a new student database management software system (Campus Café) that articulates with the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) in reviewing, updating, verifying, and reporting student enrollment statuses, program information, and effective starting and ending dates that are required to appear on the Enrollment Reporting Roster file, this new process of enrollment and certification eliminated the potential for human errors by obtaining student information data derived directly from the Student Information System (SIS). In addition, DAS continues to work with its SIS, Campus Café, to electronically integrate with the National Clearing House, specifically with direct transmission of enrollment and certification reporting. The current processes of enrollment and certification reporting will be eliminated and replaced with processes of direct enrollment and certification reporting from the SIS to the National Clearing House, then to NSLDS. Implementation Date: August 18, 2025