Finding Text
2022-002 Significant Deficiency: National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) Report (U.S. Department of Education, William D. Ford Direct Loan Program, ALN #84.268 and Federal Pell Grant Program, ALN #84.063) Criteria: In accordance with 34 CFR 685.309(b) and 34 CFR section 690.83(b)(2), for Direct Loans and Pell grants, respectively, unless it expects to submit its next updated enrollment report to the Secretary within the next 60 days, a school must notify the Secretary within 30 days after the date the school discovers that a loan under title IV of the Act was made to or on behalf of a student who was enrolled or accepted for enrollment at the school, and the student has ceased to be enrolled on at least a half-time basis or failed to enroll on at least a half-time basis for the period for which the loan was intended. Statement of Condition: During the 2022 audit, it was noted that the University did not supply status updates to NSLDS in a timely manner, within the 60-day window. Questioned Costs: Such information is not applicable for this finding since it is nonmonetary in nature. Perspective Information: The 2022 audit included a detailed testing of 40 student files, of which this significant deficiency applies to 4, indicating an error rate of 10.00%. Cause and Effect: Due to lapses in communication between departments, in certain instances, the University provided NSLDS with updates to student enrollment statuses outside of a timeframe that is considered to be reasonably appropriate, resulting in delayed representation within the NSLDS system. Recommendation: The University should ensure that any updates to enrollment status be reported to NSLDS within 60 days of the effective date of change. View of Responsible Officials: King University uses the National Student Clearinghouse to report enrollment changes to NSLDS. We believe a portion of the untimely reporting to NSLDS is a result of the reporting delays between the National Student Clearinghouse and NSLDS, as documented in GENERAL-22-64 beginning July 25, 2022. The Dear Colleague letter and subsequent updates describe issues with enrollment functionality, which affected enrollment reporting. King conducted a review on a sample of students and found that students were reported correctly to the Clearinghouse but were not appearing in NSLDS. A more frequent enrollment schedule should remedy this issue. We also attribute these delays to changes in leadership/staffing during that timeframe. The enrollment reporting steps were outlined by the prior Registrar when this process transitioned to the Office of Institutional Research, but this staffing transition could have resulted in inaccurate data being captured and reported during a window of time in Fall 2021 (when the reporting responsibility transitioned). Additionally, it was discovered that incorrect coding in the CAMS database management system (DBMS) was causing exclusions based on a missing field. These exclusions began in Summer 2021 due to added majors that were not correctly created.