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Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #40 - Modifications to Gainful Employment Functionality Now Available on NSLDS

Posted Date: August 17, 2012

Author: Pamela Eliadis, Service Director, System Operations & Aid Delivery Management, Federal Student Aid

Subject: Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #40 - Modifications to Gainful Employment Functionality Now Available on NSLDS

A number of institutions have asked whether they can still submit corrections and updates to the Department for information previously reported for their programs that prepare students for gainful employment (GE Programs). Although institutions should not submit GE Program reports for the recently ended 2011-2012 Award Year, institutions may voluntarily submit corrections to previously reported GE information.

We are pleased to announce that we are providing additional functionality for institutions that choose to update the GE Program information they previously reported, including adding students that should have been reported for the 2006-2007 through the 2010-2011 award years. In the following sections we describe the changes to the GE Program functions of the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS), including the following:

  • Data Element Fields Removed

  • Updates for GE Data Corrections

  • New Record Type for Batch Files

  • New GE Data Extract File Report

  • Revised Submittal Template

  • Contact Information

Data Element Fields Removed

Several data element fields have been removed from the GE file layouts that are included in the NSLDS Gainful Employment User Guide dated September 22, 2011. These fields have also been removed from all NSLDS Professional Access Web site screens used for GE data entry. These data elements can no longer be updated for previously reported data.

The following data elements have been removed from the GE file layouts:

  • GE Program Indicator

  • FFEL or Direct Loan

  • Enrolled in Another Program

  • CIP of Other Program

  • Credential Level of Other Program

  • Program Name of Other Program

  • GE Program Indicator of Other Program

  • OPEID of Other Program Institution

  • Institution Name of Other Program

For batch submittals, data for these fields will be ignored by our systems but the file will still load. Alternatively, filler may be provided in the fields in which data was previously supplied.

Updates for GE Data Corrections

The NSLDS Professional Access Web site has been updated to allow for some previously restricted data corrections to occur. This includes a change to the GE Update page to add the ability to update the Social Security Number (SSN), Date of Birth and/or Name of a student for one or all of the student's GE records that have the same SSN/Award Year combination.

In addition, a new page has been added, Mass Update / Mass Deactivate, to be used for updating or deactivating more than one record, when the same change must be applied to multiple records. An example would be completing an update to the Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) codes or credential levels on multiple records.

New Record Type for Batch Files

We have added a new Mass Update / Deactivate Record Type to the batch functionality to assist with the correction of previously reported GE records. This new Record Type (‘002’) is to be used in conjunction with the batch file layout found in the NSLDS Gainful Employment User Guide. The purpose of this new record type is to allow changes to be identified for multiple records and submitted to NSLDS. The Mass Update / Deactivate Record Type can be used in addition to the Detail Record Type (‘001’) or as a separate file. File layout information is in the attachment titled "NSLDS Fixed-Width Mass Update / Deactivate Record Type – Record Type '002'."

New GE Data Extract File Report

A new GE report, the GE Data Extract File Report (GENEX1), allows users to request GE data previously reported by the institution. The report provides the data as it appears on the Department’s database and is sent to the institution using the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) mailbox of the user that requested the report. The file layout for this new report can be found in the NSLDS Record Layouts section on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) Web site, in both comma separated values and fixed-width formats.

Revised Submittal Template

Within the next several weeks we will release an updated NSLDS Gainful Employment Submittal Template. The revised template will allow for the submission of a much larger number of records, allowing for the uploading of more correction transactions at one time. In addition, it will add the ability for an institution to upload its own spreadsheet. The IFAP Web site will provide more information about this update when it becomes available.

Contact Information

If you have questions about NSLDS or navigating the NSLDS Professional Access Web site, contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 800/999-8219. You can also contact Customer Support by e-mail at nslds@ed.gov.

The Gainful Employment Information Page on the IFAP Web site contains publications and resources on gainful employment as well as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).