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ED Reopens GE and FVT Institutional Reporting Process Until February 18

By Maria Carrasco, NASFAA Staff Reporter

The Department of Education (ED) on Friday announced that it has reopened the gainful employment (GE) and financial value transparency (FVT) reporting process until February 18 in order to provide institutions, that were unable to complete their submissions, more time. This new deadline applies only to institutional data reporting and not to Completers Lists, which remain closed as of January 15.

The original reporting deadline for institutions to submit their debt reporting was January 15, but in an electronic announcement on Friday, January 17, ED reopened the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) for debt reporting until February 18. 

According to ED, while the vast majority of institutions have submitted their debt reporting, a “significant number” of reports submitted in the days before the January 15 deadline led to “significant increases” in processing time. Therefore, some institutions that submitted their reports in the days leading up to the January 15 deadline did not receive an indicator from ED on errors that needed to be corrected, the department wrote. 

By reopening the debt reporting window, which now officially ends on February 18 at 11:59 p.m. ET, ED hopes institutions will have time to complete their debt reporting and correct any issues that they didn’t have time to address before the January 15 deadline. 

ED clarified that if an institution is unable to complete their debt reporting by the new February 18 deadline, it will be required to “provide all required data for this cycle that it was unable to provide by the deadline during the next reporting cycle.” More information about this will be released at a later date, ED wrote.

Those institutions will also be subject to a regulatory requirement to explain the reason they failed to meet the deadline. ED stated that it is working on a “standardized process” for institutions to submit their explanation on non-reporting. The department anticipates that this process will be completed in the spring and institutions will have a “reasonable period” to submit the required information. 

NASFAA, along with other higher education organizations and members of Congress, have repeatedly urged ED to push the institutional reporting deadline to July 2025. Additionally, NASFAA has repeatedly highlighted issues institutions have faced trying to comply with GE and FVT reporting, including a glitchy, slow, untested reporting platform and inadequate guidance from ED. 

Beth Maglione, NASFAA’s interim president and CEO, in a statement noted that while accurate GE and FVT data could have been a tool to inform students and enhance transparency in higher education, the way the policy has been implemented by the department has “forced schools to navigate a flawed system, jeopardizing the integrity of the data collected.” 

Further, Maglione noted, many institutions have struggled to submit their data on time as they have had to “decipher confusing error reports that sometimes arrived days or weeks after the initial data submission.”

“While the Department’s decision to reopen the reporting window may suggest an acknowledgment of the challenges institutions faced, it is unclear whether this step will provide meaningful relief to schools or improve the accuracy of the data being reported, particularly as there remains no clear guidance on how schools can correct data they previously submitted,” Maglione said in a statement. “Without addressing the underlying technical and procedural issues, reopening the window risks compounding confusion and prolonging a flawed data collection.”

ED clarified that the Completers Lists have been finalized and will be sent to another federal agency to calculate median earnings information. Final Completers Lists were automatically transmitted in message class GEFVCMOP to each institution’s Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG) TG mailbox that is enrolled for NSLDS FVT/GE debt reporting, ED noted.

According to ED, Completers Lists will not be further updated based on changes made to administrative data in NSLDS for this cycle, which includes changes made by the institution to its NSLDS enrollment reporting. 

Additionally, in the electronic announcement ED listed common errors found in institutions’ debt reporting. ED noted that there have been largely two types of errors with institutions submitting their debt reporting. The first is file level errors, which ED wrote could cause the entire file to not be processed, and the second is errors in the student and program submittal files, which would cause records that had errors to not be processed. 

These errors may have come from institutional reporting or through the use of third-party software assistance, ED stated.

“As the department reopens the reporting window, we urge them to take this opportunity to address the system’s technical shortcomings, provide clear and actionable guidance, and collaborate with institutions to restore trust in this process,” Maglione said. 

 

Publication Date: 1/17/2025


Paul N | 1/22/2025 1:19:32 PM

Will schools be able to edit individual student records through FVT/GE Maintenance on NSLDS or is this extension only for full spreadsheet submissions and error code resolutions? The edit link is not available when looking up individual students or programs on the FVT/GE Maintenance nor FVT/GE Programs pages.

Vincent F | 1/21/2025 12:50:28 PM

Did Biden issue a pre-emptive pardon to Cardona? I ask because his incompetence over the past several years is absolutely criminal in my opinion.

James C | 1/21/2025 8:52:27 AM

The Dep't of Ed rushed this so schools would submit information before the new administration was sworn in. This is the same Dep't of Ed that routinely misses their own mandated deadlines and takes three years to issue a final school program review.

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