[Wsssc] Updates on ISIR's and FAFSA

Tue Feb 20 09:41:35 PST 2024

Dear WSSSC,

Thank you for your patience and for openly sharing your concerns with the delayed FAFSA and potential negative impacts on enrollment. We understand and share your concerns with the severe impacts on racial, social, and economic justice this challenge presents to all our institutions. With so many federal deadlines already missed, the level of process changes, and short timelines, these delays are alarming, to say the least.

This will be a heavy lift for all colleges, but please know that you are not alone. Many of our colleges (23) are in a summer quarter header status, making this a pressing matter for us all.

To support colleges in their efforts, the system financial aid community (FAC and FAST), Student Services (WSSSC and FAC), and Business Operations have been collaborating with SBCTC to improve efficiencies to gear up for the Department of Education’s ISIR release.
These activities include, but are not limited to, the items outlined below.

Inter-commission/council team writing a white paper to clearly identify challenges and recommend best practices.

Aid Year Rollover (AYR) activities

Mass packaging

Verification and file review efficiencies.

An invitation to colleges to participate in conversations about global packaging equations.

Timeline
Two items need to happen before colleges can start to package financial aid for students: First, Oracle needs to release a system update — what it calls the revised Financial Aid Post-Regs 1 PRP3 (PeopleSoft Release Patchset or PRPs). Once we receive that, SBCTC staff will need to test and configure the changes to accept the new ISIRs. Second, despite promises from the Department of Education to release sample ISIRs for test purposes, including another last week, we have found those to be flawed, making them unusable to help configure ctcLink for the mass release anticipated in mid-March.

While we wait for the update release from Oracle and for accurate ISIRs from ED, we estimate a timeline of late April/early May to complete testing; aiming for the second week of May to move changes to ctcLink production.  Once those changes are complete, colleges will then bring in their own ISIRs in batches as they are released by the Department of Education.  This timeline is subject to change depending on when we receive ISIRs and when Oracle sends updated PRPs.

Support Resources and Activities
Statewide work group

The State Board is working with enrollment services, business services, information technology, student services, financial aid, and executive leadership from the State Board and colleges. The purpose of this group is to address system priorities and needs so colleges have the tools to work through this financial aid application season.

Additionally, the State Board is also engaging with external stakeholders and partners at the Washington Student Achievement Council, Council of Presidents, and the Independent Colleges of Washington to ensure all sectors of higher education are on working together on common and individual sector-based priorities and needs. This effort is to help coordinate messaging and support for students, families, and institutions.

Aid Year Rollover (AYR) Activities

Aid Year Rollover (AYR) activities have been underway since Jan. 23, with header colleges prioritized to go earlier. Clover Park participated in AYR sessions on Feb. 13 and 14, along with Renton Technical College, South Puget Sound Community College, and Walla Walla Community College.

Mass packaging

The mass packaging enhancement request is in place and ready for colleges to use. Colleges just need to submit a ctcLink Service ticket to Financial Aid and let us know they want to start using mass packaging. We strongly encourage colleges to test out mass packaging now to learn each step and to gain efficiency and confidence for the aid year ahead.

Header colleges learning together

We also encourage header colleges to form teams to learn mass packaging. These are: Bellevue, Bellingham, Big Bend, Cascadia, Centralia, Clark, Clover Park, Edmonds, Everett, Grays Harbor, Green River, Lake Washington, Lower Columbia, Olympic, Peninsula, Pierce, Renton, Shoreline, Skagit Valley, South Puget Sound, Spokane, Spokane Falls, and, starting this summer, Walla Walla.

Verification and file review efficiencies
Verification and file review are time consuming and require visiting a lot of pages within ctcLink, so the SBCTC financial aid team has collaborated with volunteer colleges to develop queries to synthesize the information in one place. One of those queries is moving to production this week.  The financial aid team will meet with the financial aid community next week to assess the query and determine what, if anything, they want to include to make it global. Once the team adds what the colleges want and release the new queries, this will help gain efficiency.

Global packaging equations
At the winter FAC meeting, the FAST team shared with FAC the plan for SBCTC to create global packaging equations for the 2024-25 year to assist schools to begin awarding. The intention is to get schools awarding as soon as possible, especially with the most recent delays. 

FAC and FAST are working with SBCTC to put together globally defined packaging equations. That way, when the colleges receive ISIRs to do the usual verification and file review, they will have the same playbook. Usually, each college does its own equations, but this would give consistency.

Packaging determines the award level. The Washington College Grant and institutional aid can be added later per college. Benefits to adopting the global packaging equations include: 

Packaging equations would be ready by the time the Oracle release is tested and ready for ISIR import.

Plans will be tested by multiple colleges to ensure they are working appropriately.

Any additional changes that need to be made will result in faster resolution for global equations versus individual.

College financial aid directors were invited to participate in a survey to vote on equations and setup options and we had 90% participation.
Schools that opted out of the global packaging equations will need to open a ticket to have their current packaging plans adjusted. The timeline for which SBCTC responds to these tickets is not guaranteed and may result in a further delay in awarding for the 2024-25 year.

We sincerely understand and empathize with the stress these delays are adding to already stretched financial aid office staff and to colleges as a whole. Please know we’re doing everything we can to prepare for the Department of Education’s ISIR release and support the college system and students through this challenging time.

Again, thank your understanding and collaboration on this significant challenge. We look forward to continued discussions with you about ways to approach this situation together as learners.

[Compass]
Lauren Hibbs, Ed.D
Director, Student Services
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
lhibbs at sbctc.edu• o: 360-704-4334 •
sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/> • Twitter: @SBCTCWashington<https://twitter.com/SBCTCWashington> • Facebook: @WASBCTC<https://www.facebook.com/wasbctc/>

SBCTC Vision:

“Leading with racial equity, our colleges maximize student potential and transform lives within a culture of belonging that advances racial, social, and economic justice in service to our diverse communities.”

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