Our friend and colleague out of the Atlanta FSA Office, David Bartnicki, sent his quarterly e-mail update on Tuesday morning. If you didn’t get his comments, we are pleased to provide you with some of the important components of that communication.
FSA Publications
On August 6, 2018 FSA published an additional electronic announcement reminding the community that after August 30, 2018, we no longer will print or deliver Federal Student Aid (FSA) publications. This is the final stage of a transition away from paper publications over the past several years.
FSA’s current offering of publications and resources will continue to be available electronically:
- You can visit ed.gov/resourcesfor tools and resources (including electronic versions of publications) that you can use in your financial aid awareness outreach to students and parents.
- Please direct students and parents to gov/resourcesso they can view electronic versions of publications, fact sheets, online tools, and other resources to help them prepare and pay for college or career school. StudentAid.gov is FSA’s informational website for students, parents, and borrowers.
- Publications and resources for postsecondary schools will continue to be available on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) website at ed.govas well as on StudentLoans.gov.
Third Step Verification
ED posted an electronic announcement on August 13, 2018 indicating that the SAVE system hierarchy issue was resolved and institutions may resume submitting third step verification requests to the SAVE system. There are a few circumstances under which the “No records found” error may continue to appear after entering the identifiers for students for whom the institution has received an ineligible second step response. FSA and DHS have identified the issue and expect to have it resolved in the next several weeks.
In the meantime, should the “No records found” error message appear after entering the student’s DHS verification number correctly, and the DHS Verification number was created more than 2 months ago, send the DHS verification number to applicationprocessingdivision@ed.gov for the purpose of generating a new DHS Verification number or a successful secondary confirmation of the student’s status.
If this does not result in a successful confirmation, the institution should hold the record until the SAVE solution is implemented in the next several weeks. SAVE access will be available immediately for all records encountering the “No records found” error message once the SAVE solution is implemented. A subsequent Electronic Announcement will notify SAVE users of the change.
For more information on the hierarchy changes, parolee documentation and closed case processing, please see the August 13, 2018 electronic announcement – https://ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/081318DHSSAVESysAvail4SchSubmitThirdStepVerifi.html.
Gainful Employment
Our electronic announcement posted August 15, 2018 indicated that ED published a federal register notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on August 14, 2018 to rescind the gainful employment (GE) regulations, which added subpart Q of the Student Assistance General Provisions for programs that prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation. Please note that this NPRM does not remove the general definition of gainful employment programs from our Title IV definitions nor remove certain GE program requirements not to exceed by more than 50% any state required minimum periods of instruction (34 668.14(a)(26)).
The public will have 30 days, until September 13, 2018 at 11:59 EDT, to provide comments through www.regulations.gov.
In addition, ED posted an electronic announcement (#117) on August 24, 2018, reminding institutions of the requirement to submit gainful employment (GE) program data for the 2017–18 Award Year to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS®) by October 1, 2018. Institutions may submit the information using the GE online reporting option under the Enrollment tab of the NSLDS Professional Access website, the GE batch file submission option through the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG), or by using the NSLDS Gainful Employment Spreadsheet Submittal Format online upload option.
Hopefully this EA will resolve a lot of questions I have gotten from schools about whether or not they have to report 17/18 GE data to NSLDS this fall by October 1, 2018. The answer is yes. Regardless of any proposed GE regulatory changes, schools and ED have to adhere to GE regulations that are currently in effect.
myStudentAid Mobile App
On August 16, 2018, FSA posted an electronic announcement informing students and parents that they may now download the myStudentAid app from both the Apple App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android). The myStudentAid mobile app will provide the following functionality:
- myFAFSA: complete the FAFSA safely and securely from your mobile device
- Profile: edit/manage an FSA ID
- myFederalLoans: view federal student loan and aid history
- gov: access FSA’s signature source of information on student financial aid products, processes and services
- Contact Us: contact information for FSA’s contact centers
The myFAFSA component is currently a beta version for the 2018-19 processing year and does not have all of the features associated with fafsa.gov. An enhanced version of myFAFSA will be released this fall for the 2019-20 processing year and will include additional functionality.
Not-For-Profit (NFP) Institutions Financial Statement Changes
On August 29, 2018 the Department published an electronic announcement indicating that in August 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-14, Presentation of Financial Statements of Not-for-Profit Entities, with the stated purpose of improving financial reporting by not-for-profit entities (NFP). Among other provisions, ASU 2016-14 reduces the number of classes of net assets from three to two, and requires the presentation of expenses in both natural and functional classifications. ASU 2016-14 is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2017, with early adoption permitted.
Some NFPs are already preparing and submitting through the Department’s eZ-Audit System financials prepared using the new classes of net assets; however, the Department’s eZ-Audit System has not been updated to reflect these changes yet. Therefore, the August 29, 2018 EA provides interim guidance to our not-for-profit schools on how to provide the new data in our current template structure. For specific instructions, please see the August 29, 2018 EA – https://ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/082918Inst4Not4ProfitInstInputFinStateDataeZAuditSys.html.
Active Phishing Campaign Targeting Student Email Accounts
On August 31, 2018, ED posted an electronic announcement outlining a malicious phishing campaign that may lead to potential fraud associated with student refunds and aid distributions. Specifically, attackers are using a phishing email to obtain access to student accounts via the school’s student portal and once they have gained access, they change the student’s direct deposit information so that school refunds go to the attacker’s bank account. For examples of the phishing process, ways to improve student data security and reporting requirements, please see the August 31, 2018 EA – https://ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/083118ActivePhishingCampaignTargetStudentEmailAccount.html.