Bulletin ID
DLB - 99 - 13
| PublicationDate: 3/1/99 BulletinID: DLB - 99 - 13 March 1999 DLB 99-13 Subject: 1999-2000 Processing Changes Dear Colleague: This bulletin provides information concerning changes in processing procedures for the 1999-2000 school year. We hope you find the information useful and that it allows you to process Direct Loans efficiently. Promissory Note (P-Note) Redesign and Printing The promissory note has been redesigned to allow the maximum amount of white space around the required Optical Character Reader (OCR) fields. The position of the fields will allow printing in data block formation. Institutions will print all information, including labels, in this large blank box. This should make aligning the promissory notes in printers easier and make scanning at the Loan Origination Center (LOC) more accurate. The new 32 bit EDExpress has eliminated NT print driver problems. EDExpress users will be able to print labels to create blank promissory notes that may be completed by hand. You may also request promissory notes with pre-printed labels from the Loan Origination Center. The pre-printed notes will have all labels printed on them, for example "name," "address", "social security number," etc. Electronic Promissory Note Manifest The electronic promissory note manifest has been eliminated for 1999-2000 processing. Schools will continue to send a paper promissory note manifest with the promissory notes to the LOC. The LOC will acknowledge all promissory notes using the appropriate message class and batch type. Loan and Disbursement Cancellations In response to overwhelming requests from Direct Loan schools, loan and disbursement cancellations have been eliminated for 1999-2000. Instead of canceling loan records you will adjust the loan amounts to zero and, in EDExpress, mark the record as inactive. The LOC considers a loan inactive when: · the Loan Amount Approved is adjusted to $0, · all anticipated disbursements are adjusted to $0, and · all actual disbursements, if applicable, are adjusted to $0. The loan can be activated at a later time and the loan amount and disbursements increased. This eliminates the need to reprocess promissory notes and create new loan records when a borrower's circumstances change. Inactive Loan Report Once a loan becomes inactive, it will no longer appear on your schools 30-day Warning Report. The LOC will send a new electronic monthly Inactive Loan Report to schools. This preformatted, optional report will identify loans that have been adjusted to $0. Please contact your Customer Service Representative at the LOC if you want to receive this report. Disbursement Dates Disbursement dates can be changed without changing the disbursement amount. You may use the new disbursement transaction type "Q" to indicate a change to an actual disbursement date without changing or adjusting the disbursement amount. Annual Loan Limits The Loan Origination Center (LOC) changed the loan limit edits to enable many schools to originate loans for the same student, while preventing the borrower from exceeding his/her annual loan limit at the time of disbursement. The loan limit edits performed on a loan origination record apply to a specific borrowers loans at a specific school. As a result, loan origination records for a borrower from multiple schools will not reject due to annual loan limits. When the LOC processes an actual disbursement, edits will check to ensure that the sum of all disbursements received by the borrower do not exceed annual loan limits. With this modification, an Actual Disbursement Record may reject after a school has disbursed funds to a student borrower if s/he has previously received funds from another school for the same or overlapping academic year(s). The edits will be based on the following items: · Loan Amount Approved · Borrower's academic year start and end date · Grade level · Dependency Status · Additional unsubsidized eligibility or HEAL eligibility, and · Loan Type These items will allow the LOC to edit loan limits much more accurately. Duplicate Borrower Report To assist schools with the identification of loan limit issues prior to disbursement, the LOC has modified the monthly Duplicate Borrower Report. This report identifies student borrowers at your school who have Direct Subsidized and/or Direct Unsubsidized Loans approved at other institutions for equal or overlapping academic years. Schools may then contact colleagues at other schools to update Loan Origination Records. For example, once the school has this information, the school may contact the other school(s) to learn if an accepted Loan Origination Record will be adjusted to $0. This report has been updated to include the borrowers academic year, dependency status, and additional unsubsidized eligibility flags, if appropriate. The new message class for this report is ED0300OP. This modification will only affect 1999-2000. Anticipated Completion Date (ACD) The Direct Loan Servicing Center will only pass the Anticipated Completion Date to NSLDS for the borrowers first booked loan at a specific institution. Institutions must make any changes to this date by using the Student Status Confirmation Reporting (SSCR) process and NSLDS. Beginning in 1999-2000, the Anticipated Completion Date on the Loan Origination Record should not be more than six years past the Loan Period Start Date. If the Students Anticipated Completion Date is more than six years beyond the Loan Period Start Date, the LOC will accept the Loan Origination Record and default the Anticipated Completion Date to six years past the Loan Period Start Date. This default date is stored on the LOC database and passed to the Central Database, the Servicing Center and NSLDS. Trailer Records New fields will come from the Loan Origination Center on the trailer record attached to acknowledgment files. These new fields include: · Number of Records Accepted, · Number of Records Rejected, and · Number of Records Pending (PLUS Credit Acknowledgment only) Social Security, Name, and Date of Birth Changes Report The LOC will provide a new electronic monthly Social Security Number (SSN), Name, and Date of Birth (DOB) Change Report. This preformatted report identifies SSN, Name, and DOB changes that have occurred during the last month. It includes multiple loans at multiple schools and assists schools in identifying demographic data changes for a student that may have been processed by another school. In addition, the report allows the LOC to inform a school that the Servicer has notified the LOC of a different SSN for a borrower and has rejected the borrowers loan record. In this situation, the LOC recommends that the school send a Change Record to the LOC to update the borrowers SSN at the LOC, so that the Servicer can accept the students records. For Additional Information and Further Guidance, consult: · The 1999-2000 Direct Loan Technical Reference Manual, which is available on the IFAP web site at http://www.ifap.ed.gov and the Direct Loan web site at http://www.ed.gov/DirectLoan · Sessions on the MPN and processing changes that will be held at the Direct Loan Annual Conference, March 28 to 30, 1999, Washington, D. C. · Direct Loan Training, beginning in April 1999 · CPS Customer Service at 800/330-5947 Again, we hope that you find this information useful. Thank you for your ongoing support of the Direct Loan Program. Sincerely, Margaret E. White Acting Chair Direct Loan Task Force |