Finding Text
Federal Assistance Listing Number: 84.268 Federal Direct Student Loans Criteria: Per 34 CFR 668.165(a)(3), the College must notify the student or parent of an anticipated Direct Loan disbursement in writing no earlier than 30 days before, and no later than 30 days after, disbursing the loan to the student’s account. Condition: For two of the forty students tested with Direct PLUS Loan disbursements from October 1, 2024 through October 31, 2024, the College did not send the disbursement notifications to the student or parent within the required 30 days. Cause: During October 2024, the College was unable to process Direct PLUS Loan notifications via the Student Information System due to a disruption in service which impacted the College’s electronic process over the Direct PLUS Loan notifications. As a result, manual intervention was required by their software company to upload these loans and certain steps in the process that would typically occur electronically were circumvented causing certain notifications to be missed. The College did not identify any other issue during this timeframe and determines this to be an isolated incident. Effect: The College is not in compliance with the federal regulations regarding the notification of Direct Loan disbursements to students. Prevalence: There were no notifications sent out for twenty-four Direct PLUS loan disbursements that took place during October 2024. Upon discovery, notifications for the Direct PLUS loan disbursements were sent out on August 8, 2025 and August 12, 2025. Recommendation: The College should enhance their control processes to ensure that all Direct PLUS Loan disbursements are identified in a timely manner when the electronic process cannot be utilized. Management’s Response and Planned Corrective Action: Management identified the issue on August 4, 2025 and new letters were emailed on August 8, 2025 and August 12, 2025. To mitigate potential disruptions in the electronic process, the College enhanced its controls to include manual validation of letters.