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(Gainful Employment) Subject: Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #93 - Draft GE Debt-to-Earnings (D/E) Rates and Viewer Tool Now Available

Posted Date:October 20, 2016

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

Subject: Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #93 - Draft GE Debt-to-Earnings (D/E) Rates and Viewer Tool Now Available

During the night of October 19, 2016, the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) generated and sent the “GE Debt Measures Backup Data” detail files to institutionally-designated Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) mailboxes. These detail files contain the draft Gainful Employment (GE) Debt-to-Earnings (D/E) rates for each GE program at the institution as well as the data used to calculate the rates. Refer to Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #92 for important details about the distribution of the rates, including information about the upcoming 45-day challenge period and guidance on considering challenges to the data.

Institutions may receive their draft GE D/E rates and backup data as follows:

  • The GE Debt Measures Backup Data detail files were automatically distributed in SAIG message class GEBFLEOP. A letter to the institution’s chief executive officer that included the institution’s draft GE D/E rates was also automatically distributed (SAIG message class GELFLEOP).

  • If an institution has not yet designated a GE SAIG mailbox and did not receive the automatically-distributed files, the institution can request the GE Debt Measures Backup Data detail files using the “GE Debt Measures Backup by Calc Year” or “GE Debt Measures Backup by Program” report options on the Reports Tab of the NSLDS Professional Access website. The requested reports will be sent in SAIG message class GEBFLEOP.

  • An institution may also view its draft GE D/E rates on the Org tab of the NSLDS Professional Access website, on the new GE Debt Measures page.

As noted in Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #92, we have developed a tool that can be used to import, view, and sort the GE Debt Measures Backup Data detail files: the GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool. This tool, described in more detail below, is now available for download from the "Resources" section of the Gainful Employment Information Page on the Information for Financial Aid Professionals (IFAP) website, along with an instruction guide.

GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool

The GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool, available as an executable software file, can be used to display an institution’s GE Debt Measures Backup Data detail file in a viewable, user-friendly format. The Viewer Tool can display information regarding D/E rates, including program-level and student-level data for an institution’s GE programs, and can export the data into the Excel spreadsheet application. The GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool is designed to handle detail files of any size.

Java software must be installed on the user’s computer to access and use the GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool. To download the tool from the IFAP website, click on the “GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool” link in the "Resources" section of the Gainful Employment Information Page. Institutions will then save the file to a location on their computer, open the zip file from that location, and unzip the software file (NSLDSGEDebtViewer.jar).

After downloading and opening Viewer.jar).

After downloading and opening the software, the user must first browse and locatetail file. Once the file has been located, the institution’s OPEID and School Name appear below the file extension. The GE Debt Measures Backup Data detail file must then be uploaded to the Viewer Tool.

Additional information and specifics on how to use functions of the GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool are available in the tool’s instruction guide, available along with the tool in the "Resources" section of the Gainful Employment Information Page.

Updated NSLDS Gainful Employment User Guide

As noted in Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #92, institutions will have 45 days to submit challenges to certain loan information included in the GE Debt Measures Backup Data detail file, using the new D/E rates challenge submission process on the Gainful Employment tab of the NSLDS Professional Access website.

While the D/E rates challenge submission process is not yet available for use, we have updated the NSLDS Gainful Employment User Guide to include two new chapters to assist institutions with the process in NSLDS. Chapter 8 – Draft GE Debt Measures and Chapter 9 – Challenging Draft GE Debt Measures are available in the updated guide on the NSLDS User Documentation page on the IFAP website. The guide is also available in the "Resources" section of the Gainful Employment Information Page.

We will provide further details about the upcoming 45-day challenge period and NSLDS functionality to support the challenge submission process in a forthcoming Electronic Announcement posted to the IFAP website.

Training Opportunities

We discussed the GE Debt-to-Earnings Backup Data Viewer Tool in the “Reading Your Draft GE Debt-to-Earnings (D/E) Rates Files” webinar that was held on October 18, 2016. We will offer the webinar again on October 25, 2016. Information about the challenge submission process in NSLDS will be provided in the “Submitting Draft GE Debt-to-Earnings (D/E) Challenges” webinar, offered on October 20 and 27, 2016. To register for the webinars, refer to Dear Colleague Letter ANN-16-14.

As soon as possible after the conclusion of this webinar series, we will post the webinar recordings, transcripts, and training materials to the IFAP website. Monitor the IFAP website for an announcement of the availability of these training materials.

Contact Information

If you have questions about challenging your draft GE D/E rates, the challengeable fields, or how to submit a challenge to your institution’s draft GE D/E rate, please contact the Gainful Employment Operations Team at GE.Operations@ed.gov.

If you have questions about how to access or view your draft GE D/E rates or the data in your institution’s GE Debt Measures Backup Data detail file, please contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 800/999-8219. You can also contact Customer Support by email at nslds@ed.gov.

The Gainful Employment Information Page on the IFAP website contains publications and resources on GE as well as Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). If you have a policy question about the GE regulations that has not already been addressed in the FAQs section of the Gainful Employment Information Page, please submit the question to