DCLPublicationDate: 3/1/96 DCLID: GEN-96-7 AwardYear: Summary: Incorporation of the Student Status Confirmation Report (SSCR) into the NSLDS to centralize and fully automate the enrollment verification process. March 1996 GEN-96-7 Dear President: In 1994, the US Department of Education (Department) began using the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) to track and monitor all student loan borrowers and grant overpayments. The Department has incorporated the Student Status Confirmation Report (SSCR) into the NSLDS to centralize and fully automate the enrollment verification process. The new SSCR process will benefit the entire student loan community: students, schools, lenders, guaranty agencies, and the Department. Current Schedule for the New SSCR In April 1996, all schools will receive an electronic SSCR file from NSLDS via the Title IV Wide Area Network (TIV WAN).*1* It is critical that your school sign up for the TIV WAN in order to receive your file; NSLDS will not generate any paper SSCRs. (A magnetic tape option is available to those who need it.) This file will contain enrollment information on Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) borrowers and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) borrowers that the Department believes are currently attending your school, or who have recently left your school. Please refer to the Student Status Confirmation Report Users Guide that will be distributed to all schools for detailed information about how to read the file and the exact data elements contained in it. You will have until JULY 15, 1996, to update the SSCR and return it to NSLDS through the TIV WAN (or via magnetic tape if that is the option you chose). This first issuance of SSCRs by NSLDS will be the same in all respects as future ones except that for this first time, a much longer period is being allotted for schools to respond. This process is mandatory for all schools. During this process, guaranty agencies will continue sending SSCRs to schools as before, requesting enrollment verification for FFEL borrowers; and schools will be expected to respond. However, once NSLDS takes over the SSCR process, guaranty agencies will no longer send SSCRs to schools, as the agencies will receive enrollment verification directly from NSLDS. (The effective date for this change, now expected to be September, 1996, will be announced in a forthcoming Dear Colleague letter.) Clarification of an NSLDS Data Element Appearing on the New SSCR The date that corresponds to the Enrollment Status Code F (full-time) is defined as the date on which the student most recently began uninterrupted enrollment on a full-time basis. The date that corresponds to the Enrollment Status Code H (half-time or more, but less than full-time) is the date the student dropped below full-time, or if half-time is the original status, the date on which the student most recently began uninterrupted enrollment on that basis. The date that corresponds to the Enrollment Status Code L (less than half-time) is the date the student dropped below half-time, or if less than half-time is the original status, the date on which the student most recently began uninterrupted enrollment on that basis. For example, if a borrower is a third-year full-time student and has maintained uninterrupted full-time enrollment since the beginning of his first year, the date that would correspond to the Enrollment Status Code of F would be the beginning of the borrowers first year in school. This is a change from the current definition of Enrollment Status Effective Date. The change is needed in order to improve the servicing of student loans. Because the Department is sensitive to the fact that finding the necessary data to satisfy this new definition may, for the present, be difficult for you, we are recommending the following: - If a students current enrollment status is the same as the status reported to you on the SSCR and the status effective date shown on the SSCR is a date in the past, do not change the status effective date unless you KNOW it is wrong. In that case, please provide the correct date. - If no enrollment date is shown on the SSCR and you cannot provide the actual date that status began (as defined above), please supply the date the current enrollment period began. Note Regarding the Error Notification File When NSLDS receives your updated SSCR file, we will process it and return an Error Notification File to your school. The Error Notification File will not contain entries documenting successful updates; only errors will be reported. (This may change in the future.) The trailer record in the file will, however, show COUNTS for both successes and errors. The Error Notification File will serve as proof that your school returned your SSCR to NSLDS. If you have any questions regarding the SSCR process, please call the NSLDS Customer Service Center at 1-800-999-8219. Sincerely, F. Lynn Alexander, Director NSLDS Division *1* The cover letter to the SSCR Users Guide that was recently distributed to Direct Loan schools indicated that they would receive an SSCR at the end of February, with an updated SSCR due back to NSLDS by the end of March. Based on advice from the NSLDS School Advisory Group, this will not occur; the first SSCR any school receives will be in April, as described in this letter. |