Finding Text
Federal Program Information: Student Financial Assistance Cluster: Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants (ALN 84.007), Federal Work-Study Program (ALN 84.033), Federal Pell Grant Program (ALN 84.063), Federal Direct Loan Program (ALN 84.268)
Criteria or Specific Requirement: N. Special Tests and Provisions – Verification: For students selected for verification by the central processor, the University must obtain acceptable documentation to verify the information required, match information on the documentation to the student aid application, and, if necessary, submit data corrections to the central processor and recalculate awards (34 CFR Part 668 Subpart E).
Condition: For certain students selected for verification, the information required to be verified either did not match the underlying supporting documentation (including certain tax information) or was not verified.
Cause: Administrative oversight and insufficient internal controls over verification requirements.
Effect or Potential Effect: Federal awards were not disbursed in accordance with federal regulations, and the University was not in compliance with verification compliance requirements.
Questioned Costs: None.
Context: For 8 of 15 students tested, the University did not complete appropriate verification procedures prior to disbursing aid.
Identification as a Repeat Finding: There was no similar finding identified during the prior year.
Recommendation: We recommend that the University enhance its internal controls over compliance to ensure that students are verified as required.
Views of Responsible Officials: This finding cumulated into three different types of issues, summarized below, and corrective action has been taken for each of the three. In addition to addressing the three issues, training has been provided to the financial aid staff for the verification process as a whole and a report is being run several times a month to identify possible data entry errors of the verification process.
3 of the 8 students had a discrepancy in their documentation that does not result in a change to their federal aid eligibility. This has been addressed by implementing an electronic signature of the verification worksheet through DocuSign.
3 of the 8 students submitted documentation for a professional judgement that was approved, however the professional judgement flag was not properly selected. This has been addressed by reviewing the professional judgement steps taken by the financial aid team and providing training to those who submit professional judgement changes in the FAFSA Partner Portal.
2 of the 8 students had incomplete documentation saved to the student file. This has been addressed by implementing an additional step in the verification process to require a second review of verification documents by two separate staff members.