Finding Text
Federal Program Information: Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (ALN: 84.007), Federal Pell Grant Program (ALN: 84.063), and Federal Direct Student Loans (ALN: 84.268) Criteria or Specific Requirement (Including Statutory, Regulatory or Other Citation): N. Special Tests and Provisions – Title IV Credit Balance Refunds: When Title IV funds are credited to a student account and they exceed the amount of tuition and fees, food and housing, and other authorized charges assessed the student, a credit balance is created. The institution must pay the resulting credit balance directly to the student or parent borrower within 14 days after (1) the first day of class of a payment period if the credit balance occurred on or before that day, or (2) the balance occurred if that was after the first day of class. As described in 34 CFR 668.164(c), institutions may credit (charge) a student’s ledger account with Title IV funds to pay for allowable charges associated with the payment period and prior year charges of not more than $200, in accordance with the timeframes described below. A prior year is any loan period or award year prior to the current loan period or award year, as applicable. An institution is permitted to hold credit balances if it obtains a voluntary authorization from the student. Regardless of any authorization obtained by the institution, the institution must pay any remaining loan balance by the end of the loan period and any other remaining Title IV funds by the end of the last payment period in the award year for which the funds were awarded. Condition: For certain students that had a credit balance on their account resulting from Title IV aid disbursements, the University did not refund the credit balance in the correct amount within the required timeframe. Cause: Insufficient administrative oversight and internal controls with respect to Title IV credit balance refunds. Effect or Potential Effect: The University was not in compliance with Title IV credit balance refunds requirements. Questioned Costs: Know questioned costs: $1,383; total questioned costs: indeterminable. Known questioned costs of $1,383 were identified as a result of the identified errors described in the Context below; sufficient information was not available to determine whether questioned costs may have resulted from similar issues in the untested population. Context: We noted the following exceptions during our testing: • For 3 of 22 sampled Title IV credit balances, the University did not fully refund the credit balance resulting from Title IV aid disbursements within the required timeframe. • For 1 of 22 sampled Title IV credit balances, the amount of Title IV credit balance was not resolved by the end of the payment period. Identification as a Repeat Finding: No similar findings noted in the prior year. Recommendation: We recommend that the University enhance its internal controls and policies and procedures over the applicable compliance requirements to ensure that credit balances on student accounts that are the result of Title IV aid disbursements are accurately refunded within the required timeframe. Views of Responsible Officials: The University acknowledges deficiencies in the Title IV Refund process. The deficiencies occurred as a result of process disruptions during the system transition to Ellucian Colleague. The University has strengthened its process and controls to ensure Title IV refunds are processed within 14 days.