Posted Date:January 17, 2013
| Author: | William Leith, Service Director, Program Management, Federal Student Aid |
Subject: Issue Alert: Additional NSLDS Postscreening on January 17, 2013 to Correct Pell Grant Lifetime Eligibility Information on 2012-2013 SARs and ISIRs
We would like to alert the community to a recent issue with Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant) lifetime eligibility limit information sent on Student Aid Reports (SARs) and Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) for the 2012-2013 Award Year.
Issue Description
Between January 2-9, 2013, a coding issue occurred during National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) prescreening of 2012-2013 transactions that prevented the appropriate Pell Lifetime Limit Flag values of H (High Pell percentage), C (Close to Pell limit), E (Met or Exceeded Pell limit), and N (No problem) from being set. The Pell Lifetime Limit flag is used internally by the NSLDS and the CPS for 2012-2013 and is not included on SAR/ISIR transactions. However, as a result of the blank Pell Lifetime Limit flag information, the corresponding SAR comments (345-348) and SAR C flag were not set by the Central Processing System (CPS) on the resulting 2012-2013 SARs and ISIRs.
This issue had no impact on 2013-2014 SAR/ISIR transactions.
Issue Resolution
We resolved the coding issue on January 10, 2013, and many of the impacted records were corrected through the routine system-generated process conducted over the past weekend.
To update the remaining 2012-2013 records, we will conduct an ad-hoc NSLDS postscreening on January 17, 2013 to assign the correct Pell Lifetime Limit Flag value to the impacted transactions. This process will assign the CPS SAR C flag and appropriate 2012-2013 SAR comment codes. Transactions with a Pell Lifetime Limit Flag of N (No problem) will be excluded from the postscreening.
We estimate that less than 45,000 2012-2013 records will be sent for the ad-hoc postscreening, with resulting ISIRs being sent to schools on January 18, 2013.
Schools can identify the updated ISIRs resulting from the ad-hoc NSLDS postscreening by reviewing the records for the following identifiers and data element values:
The ISIRs are sent under the IGSG13OP message class
The Transaction Data Source/Type Code equals 5N (NSLDS Postscreening)
The SAR C flag is set (if comment code 346 or 347 is present)
In addition to comment code 345, 346, 347, or 348, paper SARs and ISIRs include SAR comment code 004, which states “This SAR has been produced due to a change in your financial aid history information in the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) that may affect your eligibility for federal student aid.”
The ISIRs include an NSLDS Postscreening Reason Code of “99”
The NSLDS Postscreening Reason Code field displays “Other” on the FAA Info page in Student Inquiry on the FAA Access to CPS Online Web site.
Contact Information
We regret any inconvenience this issue may have caused you or your students.
If you have questions regarding the CPS, 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 questions regarding NSLDS, contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 800/999-8219. You can also contact Customer Support by e-mail at nslds@ed.gov.