Finding Text
Finding 2024-002
Student Financial Aid Cluster
Allowable Costs and Allowable Activities and Eligibility
Federal Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Program: Student Financial Assistance Cluster (ALN #’s - 84.063, 84.033, 84.007, 84.268)
Criteria: WCCC is required to have controls in place to ensure students receive the proper amount of student financial assistance funding they are entitled to based on financial need. These controls should include maintaining documentation on file of the calculations performed to determine eligibility and award amounts.
Condition: Our financial aid sample of 40 items tested yielded 29 students who received Pell Grant Funding. Of the 29 students who received Pell Grant funding, we noted 1 instance where the student received the incorrect amount of Pell funding. Based on the students expected family contribution, the student should have received $925 in Pell funding; however, they only received $631 in Pell funding, resulting in an underpayment of Pell funding of $294. Of the 40 students selected for testing, WCCC was also not able to provide documentation of the calculations performed to determine each student’s cost of attendance for all 40 students. Additionally, the cost of attendance amounts within the newly implemented enterprise-wide system student financial aid module could not be relied upon to reperform calculations to determine proper award amounts. Cost of attendance calculations were done by the auditors for the 40 individuals selected for testing to determine if the award amounts were appropriate.
Cause: Documented controls were not in place to ensure students received the proper amount of Student Financial Assistance they were entitled to. As a result of system changes, cost of attendance calculations within the system could not be relied upon and WCCC did not maintain documentation for the manual cost of attendance calculations performed at the time students were awarded financial assistance.
Effect: WCCC is not in compliance with required calculations for student financial assistance funding. WCCC may be liable to return funds to the Department of Education related to overpayments to students or students may not have received the total amount of funding that they were eligible for.
Repeat Finding: This is a repeat finding of 2023-003.
Questioned costs: Unknown
Recommendation: We recommend that WCCC review policies and procedures to ensure that proper procedures are in place verifying the accuracy of student eligibility for grant fund and that the proper amount is paid to the student based on financial need. Additionally, the calculations prepared to determine award amounts should be maintained on file. Ideally, the enterprise-wide student financial aid module should contain the appropriate information and demonstrate the appropriate calculations.
View of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Action: Management agrees. See separate Corrective Action Plan.