Finding 35903 (2022-003)

Significant Deficiency
Requirement
E
Questioned Costs
-
Year
2022
Accepted
2023-03-13
Audit: 38070
Organization: Lyon College (AR)

AI Summary

  • Core Issue: Two students received incorrect financial aid packages, leading to over-awards of federal loans.
  • Impacted Requirements: Compliance with the Federal Student Aid Handbook and 34 CFR 668.59 regarding FAFSA changes was not met.
  • Recommended Follow-Up: Develop and implement policies to ensure proper review and packaging of student financial aid.

Finding Text

Finding 2022-003: Policies and Procedures Related to Packaging Student Financial Aid ? SFA Cluster (significant deficiency) Statement of Condition: From our testing sample of twenty-five (25) students, we found two (2) instances where students financial aid was incorrectly packaged. One (1) student was over-awarded a federal direct subsidized loan and one (1) student was over-awarded a federal direct subsidized loan. Criteria: Federal direct loans should be disbursed in accordance with the Federal Student Aid Handbook, Volume 3. Also, in accordance with 34 CFR 668.59, Consequences of a Change in an Applicant?s FAFSA Information, if an applicant?s FAFSA information changes, the student?s financial aid package should be recalculated. Effect of Condition: We found two (2) instances where students financial aid was incorrectly packaged. One (1) student was over-awarded a federal direct subsidized loan and one (1) student was over-awarded a federal direct subsidized loan. Cause of Condition: The College does not have a policy in place to review the packaging of student financial aid. The College also does not have a policy in place to review FAFSA information changes for the repackaging of student financial aid. Recommendation: We recommend the College develop policies and procedures to address these issues. Management?s Response: Management agrees and will submit a Corrective Action Plan to implement these recommendations immediately.

Corrective Action Plan

Finding 2022-003: Policies and Procedures Related to Packaging Student Financial Aid ? SFA Cluster (significant deficiency) Corrective Action: Lyon College has two employees in the Financial Aid office. We do have a process in place to review the packaging of new student aid (FTFT and TXFR), though it is very manual, and requires both FA employees to be involved (in order to separate duties). It is still not foolproof. Our current software will not prevent us from overpackaging subsidized loans in our manual packaging process, but we can run a report to check and see if the field marked `Awards to Report as Need-Based? is greater than the field marked `Original Need?. If any are found, we can make the necessary adjustment. In the packaging of returning students ? the larger group of students - we do not have a review process in place. We will review to see if we can find a practical way, with our current limited personnel, to implement a review process for returning student award packages. The overpackaged student was simply a human keystroke error. Sub (remaining need) was calculated to be $4,484 and we input $4,884, a transposition. This was a returning student who likely did not get reviewed, and we also failed to pick it up in the process described below, comparing original need to awards marked as need. Our current software will not prevent us from overpackaging subsidized loans in our manual packaging process, but we can run a report to check and see if the field marked `Awards to Report as Need-Based? is greater than the field marked `Original Need?. If any are found, we can make the necessary adjustment. The other student was underpackaged with subsidized loans. In this case, the student was packaged on 7/15 based off of the only FAFSA we had available at that time, received on 6/29. On that FAFSA, the student had an EFC of $28,180, and no need. Therefore, all loans ($7,500) were packaged as unsubsidized. A PLUS loan denial came in the next day and the additional $5,000 was also packaged as unsubsidized. On 8/4, a revised FAFSA came in showing an EFC of $5,119. No adjustment was made to reclassify part of the loans as subsidized based on the `need? shown on the revised FAFSA. The Financial Aid Office believes that running the comparison report mentioned above on a regular basis will help us to find over-packaged need-based loans that we either made a mistake on during our initial packaging process, or due to a revised FAFSA that created additional need. Proposed Completion Date: The FAO will begin running the `Original Need vs. Aid Packaged As Need? Report on a monthly basis, and most importantly, in August immediately before aid is originated and disbursed.

Categories

Student Financial Aid Significant Deficiency Matching / Level of Effort / Earmarking

Other Findings in this Audit

  • 35902 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35904 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35905 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35906 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35907 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35908 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35909 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35910 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 35911 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612344 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612345 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612346 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612347 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612348 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612349 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612350 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612351 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612352 2022-002
    Significant Deficiency
  • 612353 2022-003
    Significant Deficiency

Programs in Audit

ALN Program Name Expenditures
84.268 Federal Direct Student Loans $3.07M
84.063 Federal Pell Grant Program $1.05M
84.047 Trio_upward Bound $464,403
84.033 Federal Work-Study Program $102,778
84.425 Education Stabilization Fund $84,702
93.859 Biomedical Research and Research Training $79,607
84.007 Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants $57,712
43.008 Education $14,706
84.379 Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education Grants (teach Grants) $7,544
16.525 Grants to Reduce Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking on Campus $5,057
15.808 U.s. Geological Survey_ Research and Data Collection $800