Maintained for Historical Purposes

This resource is being maintained for historical purposes only and is not currently applicable.

(Gainful Employment) Subject: Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #114 – Distribution of Draft GE Completers Lists and 45-Day Corrections Period: April 30 to June 13, 2018

Posted Date:April 27, 2018

Author: Federal Student Aid

Subject: Gainful Employment Electronic Announcement #114 – Distribution of Draft GE Completers Lists and 45-Day Corrections Period: April 30 to June 13, 2018

The purpose of this Electronic Announcement is to provide comprehensive information on the upcoming distribution of institutions’ Draft Gainful Employment (GE) Completers Lists and the 45-day corrections period. Sending the Draft GE Completers Lists is the next step, following GE reporting by institutions to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS®), in the multi-step process of calculating Debt-to Earnings (D/E) rates.

As described in detail below, the 45-day period for institutions to submit corrections to the Draft GE Completers Lists will begin on Monday, April 30, 2018 and end at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time (ET) on Wednesday, June 13, 2018.

Distribution of Draft GE Completers List Files

On Monday, April 30, 2018, we will send institutions their Draft GE Completers Lists for the 2016 Debt Measure Year. The Draft GE Completers List is a list of students who completed a GE program during the applicable cohort period. It is sent to an institution’s designated Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) mailbox in message class GECOMBOP, if the institution had one or more GE programs with program completers during the cohort period. For programs with at least 30 completers in award years 2011–12 and 2012–13, a two-year cohort period will be used. For programs with fewer than 30 completers in the two-year cohort period, completers from award years 2009–10 and 2010–11 will be added for a four-year cohort period.

Note: If an institution has not designated a GE SAIG mailbox by the time we send the Completers Lists, the only way the institution can receive its GE Completers List is by requesting the files using the “Gainful Employment Completers List (GEPDC1)” report option on the Reports tab of the NSLDS Professional Access website. The report will be sent in the GECOMPOP message class.

Viewing and Working with the GE Completers List File

The Draft GE Completers List is a fixed-width, multi-record flat file containing, for all of the institution’s GE programs, institutional information, GE program information, and student-level data for each student in the GE cohort. Refer to the for the GE Completers List file layout and specifications.

There are two available tools that can be used to import, view, and sort GE Completers List data: the GE Completers List Viewer Tool and the GE Completers List Import Tool (an Excel spreadsheet workbook). These tools are 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 for the GE Completers List Viewer Tool. Instructions for the GE Completers List Import Tool are provided on the first tab of the workbook.

45-Day Corrections Period

Consistent with the GE regulations at 34 CFR 668.405, institutions will have 45 calendar days to submit corrections to the information included in the Draft GE Completers Lists. As stated previously, the 45-day corrections period will begin on Monday, April 30, 2018 and end at 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday, June 13, 2018.

All institutional Draft GE Completers List corrections must be submitted through the NSLDS ProfessioNSLDS Professios List corrections submission process, log in to the NSLDS Professional Access website and access the Gainful Employment tab. Detailed instructions for using the NSLDS functionality can be found in Chapter 6 of the .

To ensure your institution is prepared to submit any necessary corrections to your Draft GE Completers List during the 45-day corrections period, you must verify that the user at your institution who will be responsible for submitting corrections has access to the NSLDS Professional Access website, and the user’s NSLDS Online Services access includes Enrollment Update functionality.

Guidance on Determining Whether to Submit a Correction

In addition to submitting correction requests for data initially reported by an institution, the GE Completers List corrections process also allows the institution to request the exclusion or inclusion of a student. Under the GE regulations at 34 CFR 668.404(e) some of a GE program’s completers are excluded from the final Completers List if the students meet certain conditions. The “Submitting GE Completers List Corrections” attachment to this announcement describes the types of correction requests that institutions can submit during the Draft GE Completers List corrections process, and includes a description of the information that must be provided by the institution in the comment section of the GE Completers List Corrections Submission screens on the NSLDS Professional Access website. The attachment also includes examples of the acceptable (and unacceptable) documentation to support an institution’s corrections request.

Guidance on Whether the Higher Credential Exclusion and Debt “Roll-Up” Apply

When a GE program completer subsequently completes a higher-credentialed GE program at the same institution, the student may be excluded from the lower-credentialed GE program’s Completers List and the student’s debt from the lower-credentialed GE program is “rolled up” into the higher-credentialed program. This only occurs in certain limited circumstances. The second attachment to this announcement, titled “GE Higher Credentialed Program Exclusion,” further explains the exclusion and debt roll up. The attachment includes a credential level chart and several examples of when the exclusion will and will not apply.

Training Opportunity

As previously announced, the “Submitting Draft GE Completers List Corrections in NSLDS” webinar will be offered on May 9, 2018. This webinar will describe the GE Completers List, including the various data fields on the list and how to read and interpret the information. We will also discuss the process for institutions to submit data corrections to the Draft GE Completers List using NSLDS. Refer to Dear Colleague Letter ANN-18-07 for complete information about the webinar, including how to register.

Contact Information

If you have questions about NSLDS, contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 1-800-999-8219. 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 ge-questions@ed.gov.