Finding Text
Program:
Federal Pell Grant Program CFDA 84.063
Criteria:
Per 34 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) 690.62 Calculation of a Federal Pell Grant, the amount of a
student’s Pell Grant for an academic year is based upon the payment and disbursement schedules
published by the Secretary for each award year.
The Uniform Guidance Compliance Supplement states that the Department of Education provides
institutions Payment and Disbursement Schedules for determining Pell awards each year. The Payment or
Disbursement Schedule provides the maximum annual amount a student would receive for a full academic
year for a given enrollment status, Expected Family Contribution (EFC), and Cost of Attendance (COA).
The Payment Schedule is used to determine the annual award for full-time, three-quarter time, half-time,
and less-than-half-time students.
Condition:
The College’s system of awarding and disbursement of Pell Grants to students was not adequate to
maintain compliance with Title IV regulations.
Repeat Finding from Prior Year:
No
Questioned Cost:
None
Context:
Out of the 40 students tested, 1 student was not properly awarded or disbursed Pell Grant aid based on
the classes in which they began attendance. The student should have received $3,698 for Fall and Spring,
respectively; however, only received $2,773 for the Fall semester, causing a total underpayment of $925.
Effect:
Capital University did not meet the requirement of ensuring that proper Pell Grant amounts are awarded
and disbursed to students.
Cause:
The underpayment identified is due to an error in the Ellucian Colleague program. The program identified
courses with similar names taken by the same student to not have credit hours. This caused the student's
status to not correctly update in the system.
Recommendation:
An update to the Ellucian Colleague program should be made, that correctly identifies course names and
numbers as credit hours taken during the semester. In addition, a level of review by the Student Financial
Aid Department should be added to ensure the Pell amount awarded is in line with Title IV regulations.
Management Response:
Management acknowledges that there was an error in the amount of Pell awarded to the student. Capital
University reviewed all Pell awards for 2023 – 2024 and discovered a total of 3 occurrences of a Pell Grant
being under awarded totaling $4,159. Students impacted have been credited for any error in their initial
41.
award. The University is reconfiguring the Ellucian Colleague program to ensure that this error does not
occur in the future.