(GE-25-01) Reopening of FVT and GE Debt Reporting Process Until Mid-February

Author
Federal Student Aid
Electronic Announcement ID
GE-25-01
Subject
Reopening of FVT and GE Debt Reporting Process Until Mid-February

This Electronic Announcement informs the community that the completers lists associated with Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment (FVT/GE) have been completed, and those data will be shortly sent to another Federal agency to calculate median earnings information. While these data are calculated, the Department has reopened the reporting process for debt and other information (debt reporting) until February 18, 2025. This approach provides more time to institutions that were unable to complete debt reporting by January 15, 2025, while staying on track to meet the Department’s goal of making these data available to students this spring.

This announcement also identifies some common issues identified by the Department during the debt reporting process and provides information on how institutions can address those issues.

Finally, this announcement explains what an institution should do if it is ultimately unable to complete debt reporting. Institutions should not submit explanations for non-reporting at this time.

Debt Reporting and Completers List Deadline and Reporting Process Availability

As described in Electronic Announcements GE-24-08 and GE-24-10, the timeframe for completing all required FVT/GE debt reporting and reviewing Completers Lists concluded at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on January 15, 2025. Those Completers Lists are in the process of being transmitted to another Federal agency to obtain median earnings data.

Completers Lists

Completers Lists have been finalized and will be sent to another federal agency to calculate median earnings information. Copies of these final lists were automatically transmitted in message class GEFVCMOP to each school’s Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) TG mailbox that is enrolled for NSLDS FVT/GE debt reporting. If your school did not automatically receive the final list in your school’s SAIG TG mailbox, the FVT/GE Completers List Ad Hoc Report (GEFVC1) is available to request on the NSLDS Professional Access website. For more information about the FVT and GE Completers List Report, refer to Volume 3, Chapter 5, of the NSLDS FVT/GE User Guide.

Completers Lists will not be further updated based on changes made to administrative data in NSLDS, including changes made by the institution to its NSLDS enrollment reporting, for this cycle.

FVT/GE Debt Reporting Deadline

While the Department obtains earnings information from the Completer’s Lists, the Department has reopened NSLDS for debt reporting until February 18, 2025. Overall, the vast majority of institutions submitted data. However, the significant number of reports submitted in the final days before the January 15 deadline led to significant increases in processing time. As a result, institutions that submitted reports in the last several days were not always able to receive timely reports indicating errors that needed to be corrected.

This secondary reporting window ending February 18, 2025 affords institutions time to complete debt reporting and correct any issues that they may not have had time to address from prior submissions.

The Department will no longer accept information from institutions for this reporting cycle after 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on February 18, 2025. An institution that was unable to complete debt reporting by February 18 will be required to provide all required data for this cycle that it was unable to provide by the deadline during the next reporting cycle. We will provide more information about that process in the future.

FVT/GE Debt Reporting Errors

After analyzing the data that was received by the deadline, the Department identified some common errors in files. Some of these errors may have come from institutional reporting and others through the use of third-party software assistance. Generally, there are two types of errors: file level errors, which would cause the entire file to not be processed, and errors in the student and program submittal files, which would cause records that had errors to not be processed.

Common file level errors include the following:

  • Code 5: TG mailbox not authorized for school group. This error comes when the TG Mailbox that submitted the file is not authorized to report on behalf of the school group based on batch services. This error can be addressed by submitting from an authorized mailbox. To find your school’s authorized mailbox for batch services, check your School Profile on NSLDS.

  • Code 6: The record type was not equal to ’00’. The value must equal ‘00’.

  • Code 9: Submittal dates were invalid. The date must be in CCYYMMDD format and the date cannot be in the future.

  • Code 8: Header text was invalid. Schools must report ‘FVT/GE STUDENT SUBMITTAL’ in the Header Text for the Student Submittal File.

Information about these common file level errors can be found in Appendix B-1 of Volume 1: FVT/GE Student Submittal Reporting (page 89) and Volume 2: FVT/GE Program Submittal Reporting (page 51).

Common student submittal record level errors include the following:

  • Code 19: Institution codes are invalid. The field cannot be blank, must match to a valid 6-digit School Group Code, and must be formatted correctly.

  • Code 22: Reported program identifiers (OPEID, CIP Code, Length of Program, Length of Program Measurement, Weeks in Title IV Academic Year) do not match to students current certified program records. This means that the Department does not have enrollment records showing that student was enrolled in the program for which the institution is trying to report. The institution will need to update its enrollment reporting to include that student in the program.

  • Code 26: No detail records match the reported student identifiers (First Name, Last Name, Date of Birth, SSN) in the NSLDS database. This means the Department does not have a record for that student in the NSLDS database based upon a match of the first name, date of birth, and SSN. Institutions should ensure those identifiers match to a student reported with federal aid in the NSLDS database.

  • Codes 30 and 32: Formatting of length of program or weeks in Academic Year is invalid. Length of program and weeks in Academic Year should be formatted ‘nnnnnn’ with an implied decimal point between the third and fourth digit (for example, 26 weeks as 026000 and 4 years as 004000).

Descriptions of all Annual Amount record level edits are provided in Volume 1, Appendix B starting on page 91 and descriptions of all Total Amount record level edits are provided starting on page 104.

Common errors in the program submittal record level include:

  • Code 21: CIP year values must be a valid value in format CCYY.  Valid values are ‘2010’ or ‘2020’.

  • Code 36: Program licensure is in the state where the main campus is located is not valid. Valid values are ‘Y’, ‘N’, ‘X’.

  • Code 25: Total number of weeks of instruction in the program’s academic year when Program Measurement is ‘M’ or ‘W’ is invalid. The value should be formatted ‘nnnnnn’ with an implied decimal point between the third and fourth digit (for example, 26 weeks as 026000).

Information about these common program submittal file record level errors is provided in Volume 2, Appendix B, starting on page 53.

Explanations of Non-Reporting

The regulations under 34 CFR 668.408(b)(2) state that an institution that does not provide all of the debt reporting information required must provide an explanation satisfactory to the Department of why the institution was unable to comply with the debt reporting requirements. Institutions should NOT submit explanations at this time as they will not be processed by the Department.

Institutions that are unable to complete debt reporting by February 18 will be subject to the explanation requirement. With the goal of limiting institutional burden related to these explanations, the Department is working on a standardized process for institutions to use to provide this information. We anticipate that creating and implementing that process will be completed in the spring and institutions will be able to provide their explanations at that time.  Once the process is available schools will be afforded a reasonable period to submit the required information. This process will be shared through a future electronic announcement.

We thank institutions for their continued efforts to comply with this requirement as part of their administration of the Title IV programs.

Last Modified: 01/17/2025