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4-20: NSLDS Enrollment Reporting - Submission Dates, Effective Dates and Certification Dates

Posted Date: April 20, 2017

Author:  Pamela Eliadis, Service Director, System Operations & Aid Delivery Management, Federal Student Aid


Subject: NSLDS Enrollment Reporting - Submission Dates, Effective Dates and Certification Dates

Schools are required to report enrollment data to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) at least every 60 days. Schools are required to certify the enrollment status of all students who appear on the NSLDS Enrollment Roster sent to the school (or its designated third-party servicer), either in batch or online using the Enrollment Maintenance page of the NSLDS Professional Access website. Schools are strongly encouraged to add a new or transfer student who has received Title IV aid at another school, even if the student is not receiving aid at the new school. Many schools report enrollment information monthly, which NSLDS recommends as it allows for more current enrollment status changes. 

Several dates are used by NSLDS in processing student enrollment data.  Because each date has a different meaning and use, it is important for schools to understand the differences.

Enrollment Status Effective Date is the date that the current enrollment status reported for a student was first effective.  This date only changes when the student’s enrollment status changes, for example, when the student drops from full time enrollment to half time enrollment. The Enrollment Status Effective Date remains the same as long as the student stays continuously enrolled in the same enrollment status, and is reported with the same Enrollment Status Effective Date when the student most recently entered that status. The Enrollment Status Effective Date should not be automatically updated each term or each year, or with each NSLDS Enrollment reporting, unless the student’s enrollment status changed since the last reporting. Enrollment Status Effective Date, and its related enrollment status, must be reported for both the campus level and the program level. 

Certification Date is the date the school certified the enrollment information.  The Certification Date, which changes with each reporting submission, roughly corresponds to the date the school (or its servicer) processes its NSLDS Enrollment Roster, and normally changes with each enrollment reporting submission to NSLDS.  Note that to ensure that the reporting is correct before NSLDS removes a student from the school’s Enrollment Roster, the terminal statuses of G, W, X and Z must be certified in two consecutive reporting cycles with different Certification Dates but with the same effective date.

Received Date is not reported by schools, but is the date NSLDS receives (from a school or its servicer) the school’s Enrollment Roster and updates the enrollment information on NSLDS.  This date appears on various pages of the NSLDS website and is used for informational purposes and in the calculation of enrollment reporting statistics.

See the NSLDS Enrollment Reporting Guide Section 4.4 for more information on the correct reporting of these dates and other enrollment data.

The following is an example of how these three dates are established.  Consider a student who began enrollment at the school as a fulltime student with the start of the 2016 fall term and remained fulltime through that term before reducing to halftime for the 2017 spring term.  The student then withdrew during that same spring term, only to re-enroll as a fulltime student for the 2017 fall term.  The school’s reporting would be as follows:

Certification Date

Enrollment Status

Enrollment Status Effective Date

Received Date

 

 

 

 

October 1, 2016

F - Fulltime

August 25, 2016

October 2, 2016

 

 

 

 

December 1, 2016

F - Fulltime

August 25, 2016

December 2, 2016

 

 

 

 

February 1, 2017

H - Halftime

January 26, 2017

February 2, 2017

 

 

 

 

April 1, 2017

W - Withdrawn

March 1, 2017

April 2, 2017

 

 

 

 

June 1, 2017

W – Withdrawn

March 1, 2017

June 2, 2017

 

 

 

 

August 1, 2017

Student no longer on the school’s Enrollment Roster

 

 

 

 

October 1, 2017 School adds student

F – Fulltime

August 24, 2017

October 2, 2017

 

 

 

 

Given the dynamic nature of student enrollment, some schools may not be immediately aware of a student’s enrollment status change when it happens. When the school does become aware of such a change, it must report the change with the actual Enrollment Status Effective Date of the status change and not the date when the school became aware of the change. While it is not required that the update be received by NSLDS within 60 days of the Enrollment Status Effective Date, the school must report the retroactive status change in its next scheduled enrollment submission, or sooner if possible, although this might happen weeks after the actual effective date. 

When reporting the Enrollment Status Effective Date it is also possible that the date reported will pre-date an Enrollment Status Effective Date of an earlier submission. This could happen, for example, when a school grants a student a retroactive withdrawal. The new Enrollment Status Effective Date will inactivate any previous status with a later effective date, as the newer status will be treated by NSLDS as more current. The Enrollment Detail page on the NSLDS website shows when newer data has inactivated a previously reported enrollment status.  

As an example, a second-year student has been attending fulltime continuously throughout her first year and into the fall of her second year.  In its November submission of the second year, the school incorrectly reported that the student had dropped to halftime on November 8.  The school then determined that the student had actually withdrawn on October 5 and reports that withdrawal in its December submission.  The reporting displayed on Enrollment Detail would look something like this:

Status

Effective Date

Active

Certification Date

Date Received

Withdrawn

10/05/2016

Yes

12/10/2016

12/12/2016

Half Time

11/08/2016

No

11/10/2016

11/11/2016

Full Time

09/10/2015

Yes

10/11/2016

10/12/2016

Full Time

09/10/2015

Yes

09/10/2016

09/11/2016

(Multiple monthly certifications of the same full time status and Effective Date)

Full Time

09/10/2015

Yes

10/10/2015

10/11/2015

Full Time

09/10/2015

Yes

09/12/2015

09/13/2015

In this example, the withdrawn status effective date is earlier than the Enrollment status Effective Date reported for the half time status.  This inactivates (Active = No) the previously reported half time status.  Now the borrower will show as full time up to the 10/05/2016 effective date of the withdrawn status. 

Note that in this example, while the withdrawn status with an Enrollment Status Effective Date of 10/05/2016 was received by NSLDS on 12/12/2016, more than 60 days after the effective date, this retroactive reporting does not violate the requirement to report every 60 days.

In another example, a student completes the coursework for a degree but it takes the school time to determine whether the student meets all graduation requirements.  Therefore, the school would not be able to certify that the student graduated until later in the summer. When the school is able to confirm the student’s graduation it will use an Enrollment Status Effective Date backdated to the date that the school assigns for graduation.  In this case, the school should first report the student as withdrawn and later retroactively report the graduation.

For a school that reports monthly, the reporting displayed on Enrollment Detail might look something like this:

Status

Effective Date

Active

Certification Date

Date Received

Graduated

06/05/2017

Yes

08/12/2017

08/13/2017

Withdrawn

05/26/2017

Yes

07/10/2017

07/11/2017

Withdrawn

05/26/2017

Yes

06/10/2017

06/12/2017

Full Time

09/10/2015

Yes

05/11/2017

05/12/2017

(Multiple monthly certifications of the same full time status and Effective Date)

Full Time

09/10/2015

Yes

10/11/2015

10/12/2015

Full Time

09/10/2015

Yes

09/12/2015

09/13/2015

Again, in this example, the graduation status was received by NSLDS more than 60 days after the effective date of that status, but this does not violate the requirement to report every 60 days. The withdrawn status remains active, but NSLDS will correctly use the graduated status to protect interest subsidy on the student’s Direct Subsidized Loans, if it follows a properly reported withdrawn status.  See 150% Direct Subsidized Loan Limit: Electronic Announcement #19 for additional guidance on proper reporting of G and W status and how it can affect interest subsidy.

Schools are reminded of the importance of reporting terminal statuses including graduations and withdrawals, and that these statuses need to be certified in two separate submissions.  Failure to report a terminal status in two consecutive submissions will result in the student remaining on the school’s enrollment roster. This will lower the school’s enrollment reporting statistic and may lead to compliance letters being sent to the school.

If you have questions about this information, contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center at 1-800-999-8219. You can also contact the NSLDS Customer Support Center by email at [email protected].

 

Publication Date: 4/20/2017

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