Finding Text
Finding 2024-003 - Significant Deficiency, Compliance
Federal Award No. 84.268
U.S. Department Of Education
Student Financial Aid Cluster – Reporting
Criteria: According to the 2023-2024 COD Technical Reference and 2023-2024 SFA Handbook, the College must report accurate disbursement dates to Common Origination Disbursement (COD) for all direct loan disbursements made to students.
Condition: In our nonstatistical sample of 40 student, we noted 1 student whose disbursement date listed in the College’s student records (10/12/23) differed by 14 days from the date of disbursement reported to COD (9/28/23) for the students’ PLUS loan disbursement.
Context: The student in question had an anticipated disbursement date of 9/28/23 that was not updated for the actual disbursement date once the disbursement date was made by the College.
Effect: Improperly reported disbursement dates could impact the amount of interest charged to a student.
Questioned Costs: None noted.
Cause: The College did not have proper processes and related controls in place to ensure that the disbursement date reported in COD agreed with the disbursement date in the College’s records.
Indication Of Repeat Finding: This is not a repeat finding.
Recommendation: The Financial Aid department should put in place controls that would ensure that all disbursements would be processed on the anticipated disbursement date as planned and controls that would detect if disbursements were processed at a later or earlier date and adjustments to dates reported to COD were necessary.
Views Of Responsible Officials (Unaudited): The College concurs with the finding and has reviewed and where appropriate made updates to the processes used to report disbursement dates to COD and has corrected the disbursement date in COD for the student discrepancy noted.
Completion Date: February 2024
Contact Person: Steven W. Eckman, President