Finding Text
Finding 2024-004 Notices and Authorizations: (Significant Deficiency)
Federal Agency: Department of Education
Program: Federal Direct Student Loans
AL #: 84.268
Award Year: 2023-2024
Criteria: Per CFR 668.165(a)(1) through CFR 668.165a(2) before an institution disburses title IV, HEA program funds for any award year, the institution must notify a student of the amount of funds that the student or his or her parent can expect to receive under each title IV, HEA program, and how and when those funds will be disbursed. If those include Direct Loan program funds, the notice must indicate which funds are from subsidized loans, which are from unsubsidized loans and which are from PLUS loans. The institution must notify the student or parent of:
1) The anticipated date and amount of disbursement.
2) The student’s or parent’s right to cancel all or a portion of that loan, loan disbursement, TEACH Grant, or TEACH Grant disbursement and have the loan proceeds or TEACH Grant proceeds returned to the Secretary; and
3) The procedures and time by which the student or parent must notify the institution that he or she wishes to cancel the loan, loan disbursement, TEACH Grant, or TEACH Grant disbursement.
Condition: The written notifications were not provided to students for the periods October 2, 2023 through October 26, 2023 and December 19, 2023 through February 9, 2024.
Cause: There was a change in the student financial aid system in the current year resulting in no automated notice being sent out. Under the prior system, this was an automated notification.
Effect: The proper notifications were not provided to the students or his or her parent(s).
Questioned Costs: None.
Context: This is considered a systemic problem.
Repeat Finding: This is considered a repeat finding.
Recommendation: We recommend the University designate one individual with the responsibility to verify all notifications are provided timely.
Views of Responsible Officials: Corrective actions were taken to resolve the automated notification process. Additional failures were discovered, which led to these deficiencies, and subsequent corrections were made to the system. Based on the possibility of future failures in the automatic process, an additional safeguard procedure has been added to the Financial Aid Office at two levels to verify that the required notices are communicated timely.