This lesson includes important summer non-compulsory term enrollment reporting reminders and instructions on how to properly report enrollment for non-compulsory terms to Clearinghouse. This information will help your institution maintain federal reporting compliance.
Transcript
Today's presentation is about summer reporting. Here's today's agenda. First, we'll go over the NSLDS continuous enrollment guidance. Then we'll look at clearinghouse enrollment reporting for non required terms. After that, we'll wrap things up with some resources.
So in April 2017, the federal student aid published certifying guidance in electronic announcement about non-compulsory term treatment related to enrollment reporting and iterated how the department defines what it means to be continuously enrolled.
The definition is in the passage from the NSLDS guide. Within your institution's academic calendar, if there is a term that students are generally not required to take coursework, the student is typically considered continuously enrolled during the non-compulsory term, so long as the student was actively enrolled in the prior required term and is expected to return in the next required term.
So what does that mean for your institution's enrollment Reporting to the Clearinghouse? For academic terms your school considers non-compulsory, if the student is at least half time in the last required term and is not withdrawn after the required term ends, that student is considered continuously enrolled. If the student is not withdrawn but is not taking coursework during the optional non-compulsory term, simply leave them off of your enrollment reporting files to the Clearinghouse. Then the clearinghouse will report to NSL to ask the prior terms enrollment status throughout summer, and we'll go over that as well later on.
There are several checklist items for required term reporting. First do schedule non-compulsory terms to the clearinghouse, and that's on your submission schedule. There's three file types listed top for summer. You will report these as summer first file type or summer subsequent file type. And then for maybe a May master or a winter session, you can report those on a non-compulsory file type. Only include students taking coursework on these non required term files and only report withdrawn statuses to the Clearinghouse for students withdrawn from your school entirely.
In the event a student drops a non-required term course but isn't withdrawn from your school entirely, typically Title four students in this scenario would still be considered continuously enrolled and wouldn't be reported to the clearinghouse as withdrawn if they're expected back in the next required term, such as fall. So two best practices regarding school policy. Title 4 students who are continuously enrolled are typically not withdrawn for financial aid purposes and the Clearinghouse Enrollment Reporting. On the other hand, Title 4 students who are withdrawn from financial aid purposes should typically be reported to the clearinghouse with the W status change at the campus and program level with the appropriate effective date.
So to compare the enrollment status code treatment between required and non required terms where students are required to take attendance such as spring for title for loan recipients, students who are full time, three-quarters-time, half time or on a leave of absence are generally eligible to defer loan payments in these required terms. And are only in repayment if less than half time, withdrawn, or graduated status is reported from the school.
Conversely, regarding the special treatment for non-required terms, the title 4 loans student are typically eligible to continue deferring loan repayment so long as they are at least half-time in the prior required term and are not withdrawn after that required term ended. This is even in the event the student is not taking coursework in the non-required term or is less-than-half-time during that non required term, such as summer. Here's an example of a traditional term base school where spring and fall are required terms in the summer is a non required for students to attend. In spring and fall, a student must take coursework to be considered continuously enrolled. While in summer the student is not required to take any coursework to be considered continuously enrolled as long as they are expected back in the fall term. So because of this special treatment, Clearinghouse has a special logic in place to make sure the correct data is sent to NSLDS during the non-required summer term.
If summer is a required term for your school, meaning that all students are required to attend, the school should report all students and submit enrollment files as you normally would for other terms. For non required terms. If summer is not required, then meaning that all students are not required to attend, there are different reporting expectations and we'll go through each of them on this slide. How this is laid out is the column on the left side shows the student's spring enrollment. The second column shows the student's summer enrollment. The third column is how your school should report students in this particular scenario. And then the last column is how the Clearinghouse will handle that scenario if you report it that way.
So the first one is the student was enrolled at the end of spring and is not enrolled in summer but is expected back. So your school should just leave that student off your summer enrollment files. And in turn, the Clearinghouse will recertify the student's spring enrollment status throughout summer Leading up to fall.
Next is the student was enrolled in spring and then is less than half time in summer. Your school should report the less than half time status in summer, so you report it as is and what the Clearinghouse will do when we receive that, we will suppress the less than half time status and report out the prior spring status throughout summer. And that's to keep that student in a deferment.
the next one is when a student is enrolled half time or greater in summer. So again, this is similar. Your school should report the half time or greater status as is in summer, and we will relay that half time or greater status over to NSLDS.
The fourth one is for a student that dropped in status during summer term. So maybe the student starts the summer term at half time and then drops a class, putting them at less than half time in summer. Your school should continue reporting the in-school status as is. So in that scenario, you would report that less than half time status and the Clearinghouse will report out the in-school deferred status half time or greater that you previously reported.
The fifth one is when a student drops all courses in summer but is expected to return in the fall. In this scenario, do not send a withdrawn status since the student is expected to return. Schools should continue reporting the in-school status in that summer term and in turn, the Clearinghouse will continue to report out that in-school status to make sure their loans are deferred.
And if the student does not return for the fall as expected, the school must report the student as withdrawn with an effective date that they withdrew during the summer.
And then finally, the student withdraws at the end of spring or in the summer and is not expected to return. Your school should report that W status with the appropriate effective date and the Clearinghouse will send that out to NSLDS.
So to sum this up, do not report a withdrawn status at the end of spring if the student was enrolled at the end of spring and is expected to return in the next full required term. During summer, Federal Reporting Parameters expect a student's prior spring enrollment status to be reported to NSLDS during summer for students who are continuously enrolled but are not taking summer courses or are less than half time during the summer. For Clearinghouse participating schools we do this on your behalf, so if you report the lesson, half time status won't hold it and report out the prior status or if you leave the student off the file because they're not taking summer courses but are expected to return, we will recertify the last spring status throughout summer. Clearinghouse advises not to report students on summer who are not considered continuously enrolled in that scenario.
So just report the students that are taking summer courses on your summer files.
So to recap, here are some best practices to avoid compliance issues when reporting summer. Add non-required term transmissions to your Clearinghouse submission schedule. You can do this directly on our site to add in summer files. Maintain current and clear policies and procedures for when a student is withdrawn versus continuously enrolled in an active enrollment status.
Consult your financial aid administration R2T4 procedure related to non-required terms and report withdrawn statuses to the Clearinghouse with the accurate effective date for withdrawn students that are withdrawn entirely.
So here are some resources related to non-compulsory summer reporting. They can be found on our compliance central site. There's some out there on the Clearinghouse Academy. If you have any questions about your enrollment reporting, you can reach out to our school ops department and for any compliance related questions you can reach out to the Audit Resource Center. That wraps up today's webinar.