[ctcLinkfinaidsupport] FA Weeklyish Bulletin 03/14/2025

Fri Mar 14 14:27:42 PDT 2025

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A Financial Aid Focus
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>From NASFAA:

  *   https://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/35451/ED_Announces_New_Report_to_Mitigate_Additional_NSLDS_Postscreening_Delays

Follow Up from Dept of Ed Notifications:

  *   APP-25-02 NSLDS Post-Screening and new data files (Updated February 11, 2025):  https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/electronic-announcements/2025-01-17/nslds-post-screening-and-new-data-files-updated-february-11-2025ISIR

>From GEN-24-84<https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/electronic-announcements/2024-07-09/nslds-post-screening-additional-identity-verification-2024-25-cycle-updated-january-10-2025> (updated on Jan 10, 2025), we knew Post Screening ISIR functionality will be available by early Spring 2025.  However, in APP-25-02<https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/electronic-announcements/2025-01-17/nslds-post-screening-and-new-data-files-updated-february-11-2025>, the Department now expects to release this functionality in Spring 2025.  This means that, until that time, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA(r)) Processing System (FPS) will not generate updated Institutional Student Information Records (ISIRs) for applicants with new information based on the results of NSLDS Post-screening.

The Department recognizes the ongoing administrative burden that this delay represents. To help support schools, NSLDS will start to provide an Excel file (.xlsx) that identifies applicants for the 2024-25 award year whose eligibility status has changed since their initial 2024-25 FAFSA submission, based on the following reasons:

Reason
Code

Description of NSLDS Eligibility Conditions

Reason
Code

Description of NSLDS Eligibility Conditions

01

The student entered default on a Title IV loan that was previously not in default

14

Loan entered active bankruptcy

02

Became obligated for a new overpayment of a Title IV grant or loan

15

Direct Loan PLUS MPN status change

03

Cleared a previously reported Default of a Title IV loan

16

Graduate Direct Loan PLUS MPN status change

04

Cleared an overpayment

17

A fraud conviction was added to the student's record

05

Master Promissory Note (MPN) status change (Stafford)

18

A fraud conviction on the student's record was cleared

06

A loan was discharged for Disability

19

TEACH Grant was converted to a loan

07

A loan went out of Disability discharged status

20

Pell eligible and met or exceeded Pell lifetime limit

09

Student has exceeded subsidized aggregate loan limit

21

No longer meeting or exceeding Pell lifetime limit

10

Student has exceeded combined aggregate loan limit

22

Pell eligible and close to Pell lifetime limit

11

Exceeding subsidized loan limit resolved

23

No longer close to Pell lifetime limit

12

Exceeding combined loan limit resolved

24

Unusual enrollment history status change

Read through the entire APP-25-02 on guidance on how to handle these post-screening ISIR abovementioned issues that are not coming in as Post-Screening ISIRs.

Colleges are manually assigning Default, Repayment, or Loan Limit, etc., checklists because of these Post-Screening situations that would normally come in as a Post-Screening ISIR.

However, there is an issue when manually assigning these checklists and no Post Screening ISIRs can be loaded:

THE ISSUE:  When Default, Repayment, Loan Limits, etc. checklists are manually added, the ISIR JobSet Run Control Initiate criteria is looking for ISIR Comment Codes that hold these checklists in place as 'Initiated'. Since there are no Post-Screening ISIRs with the ISIR Comment Codes to load, the ISIR JobSet will see there are no corresponding ISIR Comment Codes of Default, Repayment, or Exceeding Combined Loan Limits, etc. and the ISIR JobSet will then run the 'Waive' Run Controls to 'Waive' the Checklist you just manually added, thereby 'resolving' an issue that should not be resolved by automation.

WORKAROUND OPTION:  Remove the 'Waive' Default, Repayment, and other related checklist(s) Run Controls from your ISIR JobSet for the abovementioned scenarios so that they do not automagically get 'Waived' when they shouldn't be waived after you took the time to manually add them based on your NSLDS and COD review from the APP-25-02 guidance.

ADDITIONAL WORKAROUND OPTION:  You can add a "Contact FA" checklist and include a comment about the NSLDS post-screening, so the student knows there is action to take and further disbursements are held until the checklist is resolved.

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Query Corner
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Updates to Assign and Waive Checklist Queries:

  *   QCS_FA_SB_WV_016_02 has been moved to PRD (a Waive Checklist query)
Description: On the FAFSA, if the student answers Yes to the initial question of being homeless or at risk and also answers yes to any of the other 4 questions about agencies that made the homeless or at-risk determination then it would select the student to Waive the checklist as they have self-identified that their homeless determination has been made by a valid source.

Action: The QCS_FA_SB_WV_016_02 query is an optional waive query.  If you want to use this query, you can update Query Name to the QCS_FA_SB_WV_016_02 query in your "Proof of Homeless Youth" Checklist 3C Run Control.

  *   QCS_FA_SB_WV_162 has been moved to PRD (another Waive Checklist query)
Description:  On the FAFSA, if the student no longer has indicators of Special Circumstance who do not have the prompted Checklist value, this query will Waive the Unusual Circumstances Rejected FAFSA checklist.

Action:  This query can be added to the Query Name field on your "Unusual Circumstance Rej FAFSA" Checklist Run Control ID with the FISExx162W Event ID.

  *   The following "Citizenship Status" queries were updated to include comment code 288 (The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's United States Citizen and Immigration Service has identified an existing case). In addition, criteria to look at comment codes used prior to aid year 2024-2025, has been removed.
     *   CTC_FA_SB_AD_060 (Assign)
     *   CTC_FA_SB_WV_060 (Waive)

Action:  None required

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Financial Aid Learning Opportunities
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Calendar invites with Webex log in information already sent out to the ctcLinkfinaidsupport list serv:

Session:  Fin Aid Training:  ISIR Processing Refresher

When:  Tuesday, 03/18/2025, 9:00AM - 10:30AM

Audience:  New Financial Aid Staff (and staff who need a refresher) who are responsible for ISIR processing in the 25/26 AY

Presenters:  Kelly Forsberg, FA Functional Trainer

Objectives:

  *   Understand how to set/update User Defaults for the new AY
  *   Understand the steps in ISIR Processing
     *   Upload/download process
     *   FA Inbound
     *   Process Imported ISIRs
  *   Understand how to load ISIRs using the File List Driven process and the Single File process

SESSION POSTPONED:  Fin Aid Training:  ISIR Correction Fundamentals

When:  Tuesday, 03/25/2025, 9:00AM - 10:30AM TBD Late Summer/Early Fall

Audience:  New Financial Aid Staff (and staff who need a refresher) who are responsible for ISIR processing and file corrections in ctcLink for the 25/26 AY

Presenters:  Kelly Forsberg, FA Functional Trainer

Objectives:

  *   Understand how to make ISIR Corrections on specific scenarios
     *   Making Corrections on an Alien Registration Number
     *   Processing Dependency Override/Homeless Youth Determinations
     *   Processing Special Conditions/Special Circumstances/SAI Adjustment Request
  *   Understand how to Process ISIR Corrections in ctcLink using the following steps:
     *   Process ISIR Corrections
     *   Create Federal Data File
     *   Upload/Download File Process

Session:  Fin Aid Work Session:  EdConnect Show & Tell

When:  Thursday, 03/27/2025, 1:00PM - 3:00PM

Audience:  Only Financial Aid Staff with EdConnect access, geared towards newer users

Presenters:  Guest Speaker: Lorena Saucedo, Assistant Director of Financial Aid (Tacoma Community College) & Kelly Forsberg, (SBCTC) ctcLink FA Functional Trainer

Session Description:  Join your community colleagues to learn from our valued FA community member, Lorena Saucedo from TCC in a FA community Show & Tell on how to send/receive files in EdConnect, how to identify varying message class files, what to look for and just general functionality in a system YOU in FA need to perform your jobs.

Session:  Fin Aid Training:  Intermediate Reconciliation Queries Review

When:  Tuesday, 04/08/2025, 9:00AM - 11:00AM

Audience:  FA Staff responsible for account reconciliation

Presenters:  Kelly Forsberg, FA Functional Trainer

Objectives:

  *   Understand how to work examples in the reconciliation queries in the Fund Management Business Processing Guide
  *   Understand how often these should be worked and impacts to not running them in a timely manner

Session:  Fin Aid Training:  Intermediate WCG Interim Error Report Review

When:  Tuesday, 04/22/2025, 9:00AM - 11:00AM

Audience:  FA Staff responsible for account WCG Reporting and reconciliation

Presenters:  Kelly Forsberg, FA Functional Trainer
Objectives:

  *   Understand how to work error examples in the WCG Interim Error Report

Session:  Cross-Pillar Training FA/SF/FIN: Reconciliation End-to-End

When:  Monday, 05/05/2025, 1:00PM - 3:00PM

Audience:  FA, SF & FIN Staff responsible for reconciling federal and state funding

Presenters:  Kelly Forsberg, FA Functional Trainer, Alec Risk, SF Functional Trainer, Karen Ebert, FIN Functional Trainer
Objectives:

  *   FA/SF/FIN - Understand the high-level flow of the cross-pillar (FA/SF/FIN) end-to-end reconciliation process
  *   FA - Demonstrate a sample interdepartmental reconciliation worksheet college users can use/build off of to track expenses, revenue, and variances
  *   FA - Understand the available reports and queries in the Fund Management Guide that should be run on weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly basis
  *   FA - Understand the high-level process in FA concerning what queries and reports to run for varying funding sources
  *   FA - Understand the timing in which SAS files are available to use for FA/COD reconciliation
  *   SF - Understand how the GL is sent to FIN via SF/SFC journals
  *   SF - Understand the available SF queries and how to reconcile them
  *   FIN - Review of GL Account Guidance / Resources
  *   FIN - Understand How SF Data Processes into Finance
  *   FIN - Review SF/GL Reconciliation Queries
  *   FIN - Reimbursement/Drawdown Best Practices

Session:  Cross-Pillar Work Session:  Reconciliation Show & Tell

When:  Thursday, 06/05/2025, 1:00PM - 3:00PM

Audience:  FA, SF & FIN Staff responsible for reconciling federal and state funding

Presenters:  Bellevue Staff: Financial Aid Director - Christine Taylor, Associate Director of Student Center-Financial Aid - Jennifer Fetters, and Finance Manager - Jennifer McMillan
Session Description:
Join us for a cross-pillar work session as SBCTC hosts our esteemed colleagues from Bellevue College in a Webex on the hot topic of reconciliation!  Guest speakers Financial Aid Director, Christine Taylor, Associate Director of Student Center-Financial Aid, Jennifer Fetters, and Finance Manager, Jennifer McMillan, walk through their local business process on reconciliation for Pell, Direct Loan, and state funds.  This session emphasizes the importance of interdepartmental communication during monthly reconciliation processes and reviews key steps unique to Bellevue College in their local reconciliation business process.

Session:  Fin Aid Training Workshop: (Header Colleges Only) Loan Set Up for Schema 5.0c and 25/26 Loan Processing

When:  Tuesday, 06/17/2025, 9:00AM - 12:00PM

Audience:  Header College Financial Aid Staff responsible for Direct Loan Origination and Outbounding

Presenters:  Kelly Forsberg, FA Functional Trainer
Agenda:
Updating/checking Loan Fee Set Up
Updating/checking Loan Fee in Item Types Set Up
Updating/checking the Loan Fee in Create Loan Types pg
Updating the Process Loans Run Control ID parameters to 2025 AY

  *   Break from 10:30AM - 10:45AM

Updating the EY Summer Include & Summer Exclude Run Control ID parameters to 2025/2026 dates and AY.
Updating the EY Process Loan Dates Run Control ID to 2025 AY.
Updating the Schema to 5.0b on the EY Generate Direct Loan Data pg.
Updating and/or creating EY Run Control IDs for your Direct Loan Reports

Did you not receive a calendar invite?  As a reminder, you can go to the SBCTC Calendar<https://www.sbctc.edu/calendar> (filter by Calendar ctcLink Learning Opportunities > Financial Aid) to get the information and block out your own calendar for this time.

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Just for Fun!
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ctcLink Reference Center Facts!

>From March 7th, 2024 - March 7th, 2025, the Financial Aid section of the ctcLink Reference Center had 31,211 views on our QRGs and Guides!

The top 5 hits in one year were:

  *   7,498 views of Business Processing Guides
  *   4,835 views of Packaging and Awarding QRGs
  *   3,194 views of the FA Resources (overview documents, most used queries, etc.)
  *   2,913 views of the ISIR Processing QRGs
  *   2,404 views of the 3Cs QRGs

TGIF,

~FA Support & Training

[Title: SBCTC logo - Description: Compass]
Kelly Forsberg
ctcLink Functional Trainer | Financial Aid
Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges
kforsberg at sbctc.edu<mailto:kforsberg at sbctc.edu> * o: 360-704-1066
sbctc.edu<https://www.sbctc.edu/>

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