Summer Reporting Update

The following update to our June 29, 2017, post provides information on our plans to help ensure your school’s compliance with the Department of Education’s April 20, 2017, announcement regarding modifications to summer enrollment reporting.

Reporting “Ws” During Summer

The Clearinghouse has approached the Department of Education’s guidance on summer reporting conservatively to help ensure your school’s compliance with both the Department of Education’s summer reporting requirements, and the NSLDS Enrollment Reporting Guide’s requirement to report students via the NSLDS Reporting Roster/SSCR process.

Our conservative approach also helps ensure data integrity by allowing for the release of a student’s true last date of attendance (LDA) to NSLDS, if a student who withdraws from all courses does not return for the next regularly scheduled term. As we mentioned in our June 29, 2017 post, summer less than half-time statuses are being suppressed by the Clearinghouse on your school’s behalf, as a result of our May 15, 2017, enhancement.  Our update, highlighted below, is surrounding the reporting of withdrawal statuses.

To accommodate new summer guidance requirements, we recommend you report withdrawals to the Clearinghouse in your summer enrollment/non-required term files, if you are certain the student will not return for the next regularly scheduled fall term. This enrollment reporting should be consistent with and reflect your school’s policies and procedures surrounding these types of withdrawals. The Clearinghouse will subsequently report the withdrawal to NSLDS via the standard Enrollment Reporting Roster/SSCR process, providing the withdrawal’s status effective date as reported by your institution to the Clearinghouse.

New Update as of July 30, 2018

Many schools have had questions over when to report a withdrawn status in one or all of the following scenarios:

  • a student who begins taking classes during the summer and stops,
  • a student who signs up for classes and does not attend, or
  • a student who is only enrolled in one module throughout a summer non-compulsory term where multiple modules are available.
  • Other less common scenarios

The Clearinghouse strongly encourages your institution to have policies in place to address summer reporting scenarios:

  • How a student’s enrollment status will be handled in the case that a student is enrolled in the spring, not enrolled in a non-compulsory summer term, but is expected to return in the fall. (These students are usually considered to have their enrollment bridged between these two compulsory terms.)
  • Properly reporting a student as withdrawn if they explicitly state that they wish to withdraw from the institution altogether and your school is notified of this over a non-compulsory summer term. If your institution chooses to keep the student in an enrolled status at your institution at the campus level after the student drops from the non-compulsory summer term (this requires that your school not report the W to the Clearinghouse), and the student does not return in the fall as anticipated, the Clearinghouse will calculate the student’s withdrawal status to the last date of the summer term that the student was enrolled in.

If you choose to report the student as withdrawn by your institution, the withdrawal record and summer effective date provided by your school will be sent to NSLDS via the standard SSCR process and indicate that the student has separated from your school. However, if the student does return for the next regularly scheduled term, their enrollment will place the student back into deferment and reset the student’s grace period. This conservative approach helps maintain data integrity by supporting the Department of Educations’ requirement to report the student’s summer LDA if the student does not return for the fall semester.

Historically, the Clearinghouse has reported withdrawals during summer terms and will continue to do so. We are happy to work with you on including withdrawals in your summer enrollment files. Please contact service@studentclearinghouse.org for assistance with your enrollment reporting file questions.

The second phase of our enhancement will be implemented in the coming weeks and includes:

  • Suppressing “L” (Less Than Half-Time) enrolled students reported in a non-required term from being added to your school’s SSCR roster. (Installed 12.3.2017)
  • Sending previous non-standard greater than “L” (Less Than Half-Time) enrollment in lieu of Less Than Half-Time enrollment during a non-standard summer term (Installed 7.27.2017)

As we receive additional information and clarification from FSA/NSLDS, we will post updates on our Compliance Central blog.

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