Juen 23, 2008

NSLDS Updates

Two National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) newsletters issued this month offer helpful information for schools and industry partners. NSLDS Newsletter #17 discusses the changes implemented in January 2008 as part of the annual system updates, including the new NSLDS e-mail notification process. NSLDS Newsletter #18 outlines the rules and responsibilities of schools and school servicers and their CEO/President, Primary Destination Point Administrator (PDPA) and individual users to whom NSLDS online access is granted. Key points of each newsletter are summarized below.


Key Points: NSLDS Newsletter #17

The Department of Education made the following updates for the 2008-09 processing year.

• Enhanced the data match so the Central Processing System (CPS) can include a flag for fraud on the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR) to improve monitoring capability for federal student aid eligibility. (Note: NSLDS Newsletter #14 details the fraud reporting process.)
• New, separate warning icons for undergraduate and graduate "exceeds" and "close or equal to" flags for both subsidized and combined loan limits. (Previously, NSLDS only displayed one set of loan limit flags.)
• NSLDS will report the appropriate aggregate loan limit flag to CPS for inclusion on the last page of the ISIR's NSLDS Financial Aid History.
• The Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) will report additional information on the Academic Competitive Grant (ACG) and National Science and Mathematics to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant for display on the NSLDSFAP Web site and report to CPS for inclusion on the ISIR.
• Updated the Transfer Student Monitoring/Financial Aid History (TSM/FAH) processes and batch file layout.
• Implemented two new e-mail notification processes in January 2008 (addressed in NSLDS Newsletter #16):
• NSLDS Online User ID E-mail Notifications
• Late Enrollment Reporting E-mail Notifications

Key Points: NSLDS Newsletter #18

Rules and responsibilities addressed in this newsletter include:

• the school and school servicers’ responsibility for NSLDS access;
• personal responsibilities associated with accessing NSLDS online and protecting privacy information;
• establishing relationships and acceptable uses of NSLDS;
• password rules;
• account status requirements for NSLDS online users (users’ loans must be in good standing); and
• data protection.