Finding Text
SIGNIFICANT DEFICIENCY 2022-006 Student Financial Assistance Program Cluster ? Title IV ? Federal Pell Grant Program ? 84.063 and Federal Direct Student Loans (Direct Loan) ? 84.268 ? Reporting Criteria or specific requirement Institutions must submit accurate Direct Loan and Pell Grant origination and disbursement records to the COD system. Condition During testing, it was discovered that COD reflected inaccurate disbursement amounts for two students. Cause One student?s COD records showed an incorrect amount of Direct Loan disbursements, and it appears to have been caused by a technical problem with the College?s software. Another student?s COD records showed no Pell disbursements even though they had received one. This occurred because COD requested a negative disbursement after the student?s verification status was not updated upon her completion of the verification process. Effect COD records were not accurately updated. Context Of the 17 students tested for COD records, one student?s COD records reported an extra $2,000 in Direct Loans that were not disbursed to the student?s account. An additional student who was not selected as part of the initial sample was later found to have $0 reported for Pell disbursements when actual disbursements to their account totaled to $3,248. Recommendation We recommend that the institution review its reconciliation process and implement controls to ensure that COD records accurately reflect actual disbursements. In addition, we recommend that the institution implement a control to ensure that all completed verifications have been reported to COD. Views of responsible officials and planned corrective actions See corrective action plan.