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In the world of financial aid, the language is full of
acronyms. |
NASFAA News...
Compliance Issues
by Sydney Jamison of NewSource
Student Status Reporting: New Name, Same Significance
In the world of financial aid, the language is full of
acronyms. Most financial aid professionals recognize
"SSCR" as the acronym for the Student Status
Confirmation Report and the activities that are associated
with reporting requirements. Recently, the SSCR has
been replaced with "Enrollment Reporting." (NSLDS
Newsletter, Number 2, January 2002, see www.nsldsfap.ed.gov). Does this mean we now have "ER" as our new
acronym?
In another world, "ER" stands for emergency room.
Would this be appropriate for our financial aid world?
Well, that depends. You could find yourself in a state of
emergency if your institution's records do not reflect the
same information that is on the National Student Loan
Data System (NSLDS).
Remember, your responsibility is to report:
- Enrollment status changes with appropriate dates to
NSLDS.
- A student's last day of attendance or withdrawal to lessthan
half-time.
- All student withdrawals in a timely manner.
What happens during a compliance review?
- The reviewer determines your institution's attendance
recording requirements: Are you required to take attendance?
Or are you a school that is not required to take
attendance? 34 CFR 668.22(b) or (c)
- Once determined, the appropriate academic, enroll-
ment and/or attendance records are requested and
reviewed.
- Using the above records, the reviewer determines if the
student is still actively enrolled, enrolled less than halftime,
has withdrawn or never enrolled and identifies the
date that the student's enrollment status changed.
- The reviewer then compares the Loan Detail screens
from NSLDS with the identified student's status and
effective date of that status.
- The institution is asked to explain discrepancies
appearing on NSLDS with the status and dates that the
reviewer obtained from the review of the institution's
records.
- Discrepancies identified as errors in reporting will
need to be corrected/updated by the institution.
Documentation will need to be provided to the reviewer
to support that the corrections have been made and
accepted by NSLDS.
- In some situations, if the error rate is found to be
greater than 10%, the institution will be required to perform
a portfolio review.
As a dose of preventative medicine, here are some
common ER errors found during reviews:
- "Date of determination" (of a student's change in
enrollment status) is reported instead of the required last
date of attendance.
- Untimely or failure to report a student's withdrawal
date.
- Reporting an incorrect enrollment status.
- Using the wrong alpha character that represents a student's
current or past enrollment status.
- Not reporting when a student has dropped below halftime.
Record-keeping responsibilities are very important. All
participants must do their part to ensure that student
enrollment information is up-to-date, accurate, documented,
and officially relayed to the appropriate reporting
agency in a timely manner. If properly done, the ER
review should prove to be a simple confirmation of the
institution's enrollment reporting process and not an
"emergency related" headache!
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