HEERF Year 3 Reporting Period Set to Open March 6
By Jill Desjean, Senior Policy Analyst
This week, the Department of Education's (ED) Education Stabilization Fund (ESF) Reporting Helpdesk emailed institutions' designated HEERF grant contacts information about Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) annual reporting for the third grant year, covering activities in calendar year 2022.
Institutions will continue to use ED's Annual Report Data Collection Tool to complete the reporting requirement between March 6 and March 24, 2023. Account registration information will be shared by the ESF Helpdesk in early 2023.
All institutions that implemented HEERF activities in calendar year 2022 are required to submit the third year annual report, as are all institutions that had a nonzero HEERF balance at the end of calendar year 2021. Generally speaking, institutions that had a zero balance in their HEERF accounts at the end of 2021 and indicated their second year (calendar year 2021) report was their final submission are not required to submit a third year report. One exception would be for institutions that received funds from the Supplemental Support Under the American Rescue Plan (SSARP), for which institutions received funding for the first time in 2022.
During the third year reporting window, institutions will also be able to submit or resubmit certain second year data. Those include disaggregated data marked with an asterisk in the second year report, indicating the opportunity for a one-year reporting delay. It also includes corrections to second year data, either voluntary or due to data quality issues identified by ED.
The announcement indicated that the ESF Helpdesk will communicate with institutions In early 2023 as to whether a third year report is required and/or if the institution is required to complete and/or correct their second year reports.
Changes to Year 3 Form Versus Year 2
The third year HEERF annual reporting form does not allow for any delayed data reporting as the second year form did. Last year, due to the significant additional data disaggregation requested, institutions had the option to delay reporting the disaggregated data (indicated by an asterisk on the second year reporting form) until the third year report. This year, all data, including disaggregations, are due by March 24, 2023.
Added to the list of funds required for reporting on the third year form is funding received under the SSARP.
In Question 8a, where ED asks institutions to disaggregate total students and total HEERF recipients by undergraduate or graduate student status, enrollment intensity, and Pell Grant receipt status, ED adds an option for schools to report "other" to account for instances where students were neither undergraduate or graduate students, such as noncredit students.
In Question 9b, where ED asks institutions to categorize expenditures from HEERF institutional share dollars, ED adds "Construction, Renovation, and Real Property Projects" to account for the expanded use of funds authorized in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022. The category for Campus Safety and Operations is removed in the third year form and footnoted instructions indicate that schools should instead report such activities in "Implementing evidence-based practices to monitor and suppress coronavirus in accordance with public health guidelines."
Finally, ED reminds institutions that they must begin tracking race/ethnicity, gender, and age for all students, including noncredit students, at the beginning of 2023 to be able to report disaggregated data for calendar year 2023 activities in their fourth year annual reports, which will be due in early 2024. This is because ED intends to remove the "Students not categorized in IPEDS" response option in Questions 8e, 8e, and 8f effective for the fourth year report.
Institutions should update their HEERF grant contact person with the ESF Reporting Helpdesk as soon as possible if that information has changed to ensure that they receive all relevant communications. Those updates, as well as any questions, can be directed to [email protected].
Publication Date: 12/16/2022
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