2025-002: Student Financial Audit Cluster - Special Tests: Return of T itle IV Funds and NSLDS Reporting Anticipated completion date: done - June 18, 2025 Contact person: Brandi Payne Cervera Corrective actions: The two late aid returns were made under the following circumstances. Student's effective date of the withdrawal was March 25, 2025. However, the withdrawal was not processed in our Colleague system until April 9, 2025. The backdated effective date of the withdrawal in Colleague did not appear on our enrollment activity report that is used to identify complete withdrawals because this report is run weekly using a defined date range. As a result, the student's withdrawal was not identified in a timely manner. The withdrawal was identified by our Assistant Director upon her review of students with all non-passing grades at the end of the semester prior to the audit testing (see existing procedure/internal control below). The return-of-funds was processed as soon as the withdrawal was discovered, but it was out of the 45-day required timeframe. We have implemented a new procedure, as follows. New procedure (backdated withdrawal): The Registrar's Office will immediately notify Financial Aid of any withdrawals received by the Registrar's Office that require a backdated effective date in Colleague to ensure that we are returning funds within the required timeframe. The Financial Aid Director, Assistant Director of Financial Aid, and the Registrar met and developed this new procedure. The procedure was implemented on June 18, 2025. An institution must certify enrollment information to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) every 60 days. Because of the issue with the backdated effective date of the withdrawal described above, the enrollment reporting for this student was made outside of the 60-day reporting window. I request the removal of the NSLDS reporting deficiency since the late processing of the student's withdrawal and return-of-funds was the root cause of the late NSLDS reporting, and there were no other enrollment reporting issues. The second late return was due to human error. After a R2T4 calculation has been performed, there is an "Update Student Aid" button on the ROFC screen in Colleague that must be manually marked "yes" in order for the return of- funds to post to the student's account. This step was missed for one student which caused the late return-of-funds outside of the required 45-day timeframe. New procedure (human error): Assistant Director has put a standing item on her calendar to review RT24's every Wednesday with a notation to check the "Update Student Aid" box in Colleague so that the return will occur. The Assistant Director will also check the list of withdrawals after each weekly aid transmittal to make sure the aid returns have all posted to the student accounts as expected. This procedure was put into place on June 18, 2025. Existing Procedure/Internal Control: We can say with certainty that out of the 165 withdrawals for the 2024/2025 award year, the two students identified in the audit were the only two late returns. The Assistant Director of Financial Aid reviews all students with non-passing grades at the end of each semester to identify unofficial withdrawals and to ensure that all returns were made appropriately and that no R2T4 calculations were missed. Potential issues are identified through this end-of-semester review. This is how the issue with the backdated withdrawal date described above was discovered. She will continue this effective internal control process each semester which will confirm that our new procedures are working as intended.