Change proposal: Verification of ISIR records

The University of Massachusetts awards federal, state and institutional aid to over 65% of the student population each year (approximately 14,000 students). To receive financial aid from the University, students must first submit the Federal Student Financial Aid (FAFSA) application. After a student files the FAFSA, federal contractors receive the information and verify it through the National Student Data Loan Service (NSLDS). The NSLDS checks for student compliance with federally established criteria such as immigration status, selective service compliance and reported citizenship accuracy. After database verification checking, the student record is sent to the University in the form of an institutional student individual report (ISIR).

The Financial Aid Office must run query programs that check each field of a record to ensure that verification is complete. Any student records that do not completely match verification criteria or require additional documents are excluded from further processing. On average, approximately 2,900 records fall into the database "mismatch" category. The Financial Aid Office is required to resolve any eligibility problems resulting from these mismatches before disbursing federal financial aid to student applicants.

Completing verification for mismatched records is extremely laborious and time-consuming for Financial Aid Services staff--and University students. Financial Aid staff must manually review each record, and then a counselor must decide what documentation is required to resolve the discrepancies. Documentation problems that could not be resolved quickly (within five days) required, on average, from one to two months or more for the student to produce the requisite materials.

Until very recently, the retrieval of financial aid transcript data from NSLDS was very time-consuming for Financial Aid Services staff. A set of records that required transcript verification was prepared and the electronic file was sent to NSLDS. In a week, the NSLDS confirmation records were drawn back. That file was printed out, often numbering in the hundreds of pages. From the printout, a staff member manually entered the data into the records of each student. It is estimated that, over the course of the year, 1.45 FTE of staff time was required to handle NSLDS data in this manner.

The limitations of this approach were largely overcome last fall. At that time, the Department of Education opened web access to all federal loan information and financial aid histories. Students now have access to their personal loan histories, while financial aid administrators have access to the records of all students. Because the information is now available electronically, there is no need for paper-based financial aid transcripts to be sent from one institution to another.

From the standpoint of staff and students, PeopleSoft has the potential to greatly improve the verification process. More detailed information about confirmation problems will be available.For instances of database disconfirmations, PeopleSoft will be able to query the federal database again, recheck for a match, and potentially clear the student for further processing. With these improvements in the verification process, there will be a marked decline in the delays students may experience in the awarding of their financial aid because of requests for verification-related documents.

For financial aid histories, the level of connectivity between the NSLDS and the University will be greatly enhanced. NSLDS data will be received during the ISIR load process and loaded directly into the PeopleSoft system. The NSLDS data will be used exclusively to meet FAT requirements. This eliminates the need to request paper FATs from students who are late applicants or applicants who have attended previous institutions not listed on the NSLDS data.

Because PeopleSoft will provide the Financial Aid Office with increased access to the NSLDS database, much more information on students' financial aid histories will be available to front?line and financial aid counseling staff. PeopleSoft can track correspondence between the office and students and changes to students' financial aid status. In this way, PeopleSoft maintains a complete history of transactions, helping to provide explanations for changes in awards.

Overall, the new system will enable Financial Aid Services to improve customer service for students and redirect staff time for other priorities.

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