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Summary: Updated Operational Guidance for Action (Supersedes Guidance Posted on 9/24/2007) - How to Accurately Report Verification Status Codes to COD System

Publication Date: September 28, 2007

Author: William Leith, Acting General Manager, Application, Operations and Delivery Services, Federal Student Aid

Summary: Updated Operational Guidance for Action (Supersedes Guidance Posted on 9/24/2007) – How to Accurately Report Verification Status Codes to COD System

Posted on 09-28-2007

Note: This Electronic Announcement supersedes the guidance we posted on September 24, 2007. The only change we have made to the earlier guidance is to correct the first paragraph under the "Verification Status Report" section to accurately reflect the students who are listed in this report. The report lists all of the school's students with reported Pell Grant disbursements who were selected by the CPS for verification and who do not have a verification status code of "V" or "S".

The regulations that govern the verification of Title IV Federal student aid application information are set forth in 34 CFR Part 668 Subpart E (34 CFR 668.51 - 668.61). In accordance with these regulations, a school is required to complete verification of information submitted by an applicant on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) in connection with the calculation of the applicant's expected family contribution (EFC) for the Title IV Federal student aid programs if the application has been selected for verification.

In this announcement, we provide schools with updated operational guidance on the codes to use when reporting verification status to us in Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant) awards. We present this information in the following order:

  • Verification Status Codes
  • Verification Status Report
  • Contact Information

Verification Status Codes

For each Pell Grant award disbursed to a student who was selected for verification, a school must report the student’s verification status to us via the Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) System. To do this, the school includes a verification status code in the Common Record document it submits to the COD System via batch processing or when it creates the award online via the COD Web site. The verification status code included in the award must accurately reflect the student’s verification status.

The verification status codes are “V”, “W”, and “S”. The conditions under which each verification status code should be used are as follows:



“V” is used when…


The school has verified the student.



“W” is used when…


The student was selected for verification by the Central Processing System (CPS) or by the school, and the school chose to pay a first disbursement of the Pell Grant without documentation as provided for in the regulations at 34 CFR 668.58.

Note: The “W” code must be updated to “V” once verification is complete. If the code is not updated, the Pell Grant will be reduced to a zero dollar amount ($0.00) when Federal Student Aid performs a global reduction of disbursements for awards with a “W” status.



“S” is used when…


The CPS selected the student for verification, but the school did not verify the student for one of the following reasons:

1)

The school was not required to verify the student in accordance with the exclusions from verification provided for in the regulations at 34 CFR 668.54(b). These exclusions are outlined in the “Application and Verification Guide” of the “Federal Student Aid Handbook” posted on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site.

2)

The school was not required to verify the student because it had already reached the 30% verification threshold as provided for in the regulations at 34 CFR 668.54(a).

3)

The school participates in the Quality Assurance Program, and the student’s application did not meet the school’s verification criteria established in accordance with the waiver of verification requirements in the Quality Assurance Program.


Note: A school does not need to submit a verification status code and should leave the field blank if the student was not selected for verification or if a selected transaction was received by the school after the student was no longer enrolled.

Verification Status Report

The Verification Status Report is a tool that a school can use to assist in identifying Pell Grant awards that may need verification status follow up. The report lists all of the school’s students with reported Pell Grant disbursements who were selected by the CPS for verification and who do not have a verification status code of “V” or “S”.

The Verification Status Report is generated by the COD System on a monthly basis and sent to a school’s Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) mailbox in Preformatted Text file format (message class PGVRxxOP). The report is also available in Comma-Delimited format in the school’s Newsbox on the COD Web site. If there is no data for a given month, the report will not be sent to the school’s SAIG mailbox or posted on the COD Web site.

A school also can request a Verification Status Report via the COD Web site or by submitting the batch data request for the appropriate award year message class via the SAIG. For information about how to request the report, refer to Volume VI, Section 8 of the 2006-2007 COD Technical Reference and the 2007-2008 COD Technical Reference.

Note for Quality Assurance Program Schools: Currently, schools in the Quality Assurance Program do not automatically receive the COD System-generated monthly Verification Status Report. Federal Student Aid will begin automatically providing this report to Quality Assurance Program schools in the near future and will communicate with these schools under separate cover about the report’s availability. In the meantime, a Quality Assurance Program school can request a Verification Status Report as explained above.

Contact Information

If you have questions about reporting verification status codes to the COD System, contact the COD School Relations Center at 800/4PGRANT (800/474-7268) for ACG, National SMART Grant, and Pell Grant. You may also e-mail CODSupport@acs-inc.com.