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Summary: Pell Grant Processing Deadline for the 2004-2005 Award Year

Publication Date: September 6, 2005

Author: G. Kay Jacks, General Manager, FSA Application, School Eligibility and Delivery Services

Summary: Pell Grant Processing Deadline for the 2004-2005 Award Year

Posted on 09-06-2005

Pell Grant Processing Deadline for 2004-2005 Award Year

The Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant) Program regulations at 34 CFR 690.83(a) establish the deadline by which a school must submit student payment data each award year. The data must be submitted to the Department by September 30 following the end of the award year in which the Pell Grant is made.

As required by regulations, and consistent with the notice published in the Federal Register on April 13, 2005 (70 FR 19423) and available at http://www.ifap.ed.gov/fregisters/FR04132005.html, the deadline for electronically transmitting Pell Grant records for the 2004-2005 Award Year to the Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System is Friday, September 30, 2005. To meet this deadline, a school's transmissions must be completed by midnight (in the school's local time zone) on September 30, 2005.

Note: Schools or third-party servicers that are located in a federally-declared disaster area and that were adversely affected by hurricane Katrina should refer to the Department's guidance related to extension of the deadline dates for specific filing and reporting activities.

Tools to Assist Schools with Reconciliation Prior to September 30, 2005

There are two Pell Grant Data Requests available to schools as they complete both the year-end and ongoing reconciliation processes. The Reconciliation Report is a student summary of processed records. The Year-to-Date (YTD) Record contains detailed origination, disbursement, and summary information at a transaction level.

To assist schools with final reporting before the September 30, 2005 deadline, we are going to send a Reconciliation Report for the 2004-2005 Award Year to the SAIG mailbox of all Pell Grant reporting schools with at least one funded 2004-2005 disbursement.

We will begin sending the Reconciliation Reports to the reporting schools on September 6, 2005, and schools will receive the reports over the next week. Each report will-

  • Include information for all Pell Grant recipients at all attended campuses for the reporting school;
  • Be in the standard fixed-length format as specified in Volume VIII, Section 8 of the 2004-2005 COD Technical Reference (http://www.ifap.ed.gov/cod/0405CODTechRefDraft.html); and
  • Be sent to the reporting school's SAIG mailbox via the standard message class, PGRC05OP.

Upon receipt, the Reconciliation Report can be downloaded and then viewed, printed, or imported into a spreadsheet for comparison with the school's data. For instance, this file can be imported into a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel (XLS). Since the file is not in XLS (spreadsheet format), the spreadsheet program will automatically prompt the user to convert it by following the directions displayed. Once the file has been imported into a spreadsheet, the column widths and data formats must be reviewed and adjusted to meet the user's needs.

Note: The format of any dollar value data element will need to be updated to numeric with two decimal places.

After a school completes a comparison of its data and the data in the COD System, the school must resolve all discrepancies by either updating the school database or submitting updates to the COD System by September 30, 2005. To assist in the resolution process, a school can request a YTD Record. A YTD Record can be requested for one given student or for all Pell Grant recipients at the school. The YTD Record contains detailed origination and disbursement data at a transaction level. This detailed information can assist in the determination of the appropriate resolution.

Note: Due to a COD System issue that continues to affect the Pell Grant YTD record and that has taken longer than expected to resolve, we continue to caution schools not to use the YTD record for rebuilding a complete student record or Pell database until the issue is resolved.

A school can request a YTD Record on the COD Web site, www.cod.ed.gov, or by submitting the batch data request for the appropriate award year message class (PGRQ05IN) to the COD System via SAIG. The school will then receive a data request acknowledgement and the requested report in the corresponding award year message class (PGYR05OP) via SAIG.

Note to EDExpress Users: To identify discrepancies, a school can use EDExpress to run a comparison between a YTD Record and the school's Pell Grant database. For more information about using the comparison feature, refer to the EDExpress 2004-2005 Desk Reference for Pell under the "Software and Associated Documents" link at http://fsadownload.ed.gov/index.htm/.
Additionally, a school can use the COD Web site to view current award origination and disbursement information in the COD System. If the school has a student in a Pell Overpayment Project (POP) situation, the Pell Person Information screen on the COD Web site allows the school to view the activities of other schools with respect to originations and disbursements for that student. For information about accessing the COD Web site, refer to the electronic announcement available at http://www.ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/0316UpdateCODWebsiteaccessforschools.html.

Acceptance and Rejection of 2004-2005 Award Year Data After September 30, 2005

After September 30, 2005, the COD System will-

  • Accept and process decreases to previously accepted 2004-2005 award originations and decreases to previously accepted 2004-2005 disbursements; and
  • Accept and process originations and disbursements of new 2004-2005 awards or 2004-2005 award amount increases only if 1) the student was in a POP situation during the 2004-2005 Award Year or 2) the Department has granted Administrative Relief or Extended Processing for the 2004-2005 Award Year.

Note: Unless one of these situations applies, the COD System will reject originations and disbursements of new 2004-2005 awards or 2004-2005 award amount increases and return Full Participant Edit 43/Phase-In Edit 399 (New Award Amount or Award Increase Received After End of Processing Year and Institution has Not Been Granted Administrative Relief) or Full Participant Edit 71/ Phase-In Edit 417 (New Disbursement Increase, or Payment Trigger to "Y" Received After End of Processing Year and Institution Has Not Been Granted Administrative Relief).

Requesting Administrative Relief or Extended Processing for 2004-2005 Award Year

A school can request Administrative Relief or Extended Processing for the 2004-2005 Award Year through May 1, 2006. If necessary, a school also can request additional extensions of an initially approved period through May 1, 2006.

Upon request, the Department may grant-

  • Administrative Relief if an administrative or processing error made by the Department or one of its operating partners or an event, such as a natural disaster or other unusual circumstance beyond the school's control, prevented the school from meeting the deadline; or
  • Extended Processing if the school may make a late disbursement in accordance with 34 CFR 668.164(g) or may request unreported funds based upon a program review or initial audit finding in accordance with 34 CFR 690.83(d).

Note: In the case of a late disbursement, a school must determine if it needs the Department's approval to make the late disbursement. The school should refer to the Department's guidance in Dear Colleague Letter GEN-05-07 (April 2005). This Dear Colleague Letter explains the conditions under which a school needs the Department's approval before it makes a late disbursement of Title IV aid and the procedures for requesting such approval. When applicable, a school must request and receive the Department's approval to make the late disbursement in addition to requesting Extended Processing.

A school can request Administrative Relief or Extended Processing via the COD Web site or via e-mail as follows:

Via COD Web Site

Log in to the COD Web site, www.cod.ed.gov, and-

  • Go to the School Information screen;
  • Click on "Request Post Deadline Processing" located in the menu on the left side of the screen;
  • Complete all required fields-including choosing the reason for the request from a dropdown menu and providing a detailed description of the problem; and
  • Click on the "Submit" button below the data fields.

Via E-mail

E-mail the following information to the Department at fsa.administrative.relief@ed.gov:

  • School's Name and 6-Digit Pell Institution Number;
  • Affected Award Year (i.e., 2004-2005);
  • Requestor's Name, E-mail Address, and Phone Number;
  • Reason for the request and a detailed description of the problem; and
  • Date by which records will be submitted to the COD System.

Following receipt and review of a request for Administrative Relief or Extended Processing, the Department will e-mail the requestor that the request has been approved or denied. The school may not submit 2004-2005 data to the COD System until it has received the Department's e-mail approving the request.

Upon receipt of the Department's approval, the school can submit data through its normal batch/document process or can create awards/originations and disbursements via the COD Web site. Full Participants and Phase-In Participants will receive acknowledgements for 2004-2005 post-deadline processing data entered via the COD Web site.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this announcement, contact the COD School Relations Center at 800/4PGRANT. You may also e-mail CODSupport@acs-inc.com.