| Publication Date: May 23, 2006 Author: G. Kay Jacks, General Manager, FSA Application, School Eligibility and Delivery Services Summary: HERA Operational Implementation Guidance (CPS, COD System, EDExpress Suite) -- Notice of CPS Reprocessing Issue and Planned Resolution Posted on 05-23-2006 We have discovered an issue with the 2006-2007 records that were reprocessed by the Central Processing System (CPS) on May 19, 2006. As described in a recently-posted electronic announcement, this reprocessing of Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) data was necessary to implement provisions of the Higher Education Reconciliation Act of 2005 (the HERA), Pub. L. 109-171, as described in Dear Colleague Letter, GEN-06-05. These changes include eliminating the consideration of a dependent student's type of tax return for the simplified needs test (SNT) and automatic zero expected family contribution (EFC), and increasing the income threshold to $20,000 to qualify for an automatic zero EFC. Due to an error in the HERA-related updates made to the CPS prior to the reprocessing, not all student records were reprocessed on May 19, 2006 according to the new need analysis changes. This error resulted in many duplicate Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) and Student Aid Reports (SARs) being sent to institutions and students. Resolution To correct this error, the CPS will reprocess all affected records again on May 24, 2006 to ensure the HERA need analysis changes are applied correctly to all appropriate transactions. Institutions should receive the majority of reprocessed records in their SAIG mailboxes by late afternoon or early evening on May 24, 2006. ISIRs generated from this reprocessing will be sent in the IGSG07OP message class and can be identified as follows:
Please note that the majority of these reprocessed ISIRs will have a Processed Date of 5/24/06 (ISIR field #153, position 689). However, because a small number of affected records will not be reprocessed until the CPS receives secondary confirmation results back from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), some reprocessed ISIRs with a Reprocess Reason Code of "02" will have a Processed Date of 5/25/06, 5/26/06 or 5/30/06. How to Handle ISIRs Resulting from May 19, 2006 Reprocessing Institutions can ignore or delete ISIR data received in the IGSG07OP message class as a result of the May 19, 2006 reprocessing. ISIRs that may be disregarded will have a Reprocess Reason Code of "01" and a Processed Date of 5/19/06. You can use the following data elements to identify ISIRs that can be ignored or deleted:
Because the IGSG07OP message class can also contain data resulting from NSLDS post-screening and DHS secondary confirmation, it is important to note that not all ISIR data in this message class can be deleted. Also, because some records that were identified for reprocessing on May 19, 2006 were held for DHS secondary confirmation, these records were reprocessed later using the correct need analysis criteria and therefore cannot be ignored. These records (approximately 350) will have a Reprocess Reason Code of "01" and a Processed Date of 5/22/06, 5/23/06, or 5/24/06. Institutions must be careful to delete only the records in the IGSG07OP message class that have a Reprocess Reason Code of "01" and a Processed Date of 5/19/06. For Further Information Please refer to the electronic announcement, posted on May 11, 2006, for further details about the May 24, 2006 reprocessing. All details in that message regarding the May 19, 2006 reprocessing will now apply to the May 24, 2006 reprocessing. If you have questions regarding this message, contact CPS/SAIG Technical Support at 800/330-5947 (TDD/TTY 800/511-5806) or by e-mail at CPSSAIG@ed.gov. If you have other questions regarding the HERA, contact the Federal Research and Customer Care Center (RCCC) at 800/433-7327. We regret any inconvenience this reprocessing issue may have caused you. |