Finding Text
– Student Financial Assistance – Pell Grants Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Education Program: Student Financial Assistance Cluster Award(s) Federal Pell Grant Assistance Listing Number(s): 84.063 Award Year: 2025 CRITERIA: Under 34 CFR 690.63 (Calculation of a Federal Pell Grant for a payment period), an institution must determine a student's enrollment status and use the appropriate Pell Grant Payment Schedule to calculate the correct award amount. CONDITION: During our recalculation testing of a sample of 38 students who received Federal Pell Grants during the award year, we noted the following three exceptions: • For two students, the University's financial aid system incorrectly locked the awards calculation. This resulted in one student being underpaid by $296 and the second student being underpaid by $920. • For one student, the University disbursed Pell Grant funds based on a full-time enrollment status, while the student’s actual enrollment was three-quarter (¾) time. This resulted in an overpayment of $367. QUESTIONED COSTS: $849 CAUSE/EFFECT: Management had a system issue in the spring of 2025 that caused Pell awards to calculate incorrectly on certain student accounts. As a workaround, the University locked the awards in the system and the above students were not calculated correctly, which resulted in $1,216 in underpayments and $367 in overpayments. RECOMMENDATION: We recommend the University (i) work with the financial aid software vendor to identify and resolve the system error causing student files to lock, ensuring all future calculations can be dynamically updated; and (ii) enhance controls to verify that a student's enrollment status in the registrar's system matches the enrollment status used in the financial aid module immediately prior to drawing down and disbursing funds VIEW OF RESONSIBLE OFFICIALS: Management concurs with this finding and will reassess controls, review these accounts and implement controls to ensure that timely and accurate calculations are made.