The following is an update to our September 6, 2022, Compliance Central blog post, “Next Steps: Processing Enrollment Files and NSLDS Reporting Regarding FSA Announcing Some NSLDS Functionality Delays.”
On November 14, 2022, the National Student Clearinghouse received final confirmation from the Federal Student Aid (FSA) and National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) that the supplemental file submission solution is complete and enrollment status updates flowed to NSLDS in chronological order by certification date.
PLEASE NOTE: FSA and the NSLDS have acknowledged that there may be instances in which some student enrollment status updates do not appear in the NSLDS system. In these isolated cases, FSA has provided schools with language that they can give to their auditors if a student is selected from this population. Please see this Electronic Announcement for more information and the specific language.
The NSLDS Enrollment Roster process has been on hold since July 19, 2022, due to the deployment of the NSLDS modernization platform on July 25, 2022. The Clearinghouse, FSA, and NSLDS have been in conversations during the outage to identify a method for the Clearinghouse to report enrollment status updates received by the Clearinghouse to the NSLDS. Our collaborative solution utilized the NSLDS’s supplemental file submission process and contained data that had not been reported to the NSLDS since the July 2022 roster response process. Throughout this effort, the Clearinghouse sent more than 58 million school and student record updates to the NSLDS, for federal student aid recipients.
Next Steps
In its Electronic Announcement 
posted on November 14, 2022, FSA advised that the Enrollment Roster process will resume with off-schedule November 2022 NSLDS Enrollment Rosters. Per FSA, “For Schools Serviced by the National Student Clearinghouse — The most current information will be based on National Student Clearinghouse updates submitted to us over the past several weeks.”
The Clearinghouse is expecting to receive the November 2022 off-schedule rosters and respond to NSLDS via the regular roster response process with current enrollment certifications for students by Friday, November 18, 2022.
FSA also provided details on a compliance exception for schools as a result of the off-schedule November 2022 Rosters. FSA states, “As required by regulations, any errors on a school’s Enrollment Roster must be corrected by a school within 10 days of receiving its Error/Acknowledgement file. We are providing relief to schools in complying with this requirement because we are 1) sending the November Enrollment Rosters off schedule and 2) planning to resume sending enrollment rosters per regular schedules in December 2022.
- For [Clearinghouse] Schools scheduled to Receive December Enrollment Roster Dec. 1st – 10th – A school on this schedule is not required to make corrections to the off-schedule November Enrollment Roster. The school is required to check its December Enrollment Roster to ensure any errors no longer exist. If errors do exist in the December Roster Response file, the school must make corrections within the required 10 days.”
The usual frequency of the monthly NSLDS Enrollment Roster process will resume starting in December. This includes an NSLDS Enrollment Roster that will be created for Clearinghouse participating schools and sent to the Clearinghouse by NSLDS at the beginning of each month. Errors will be made available via the Clearinghouse’s secure site for your institution to resolve as needed.*
Thank you for your patience while the Clearinghouse collaborated with FSA and NSLDS to get a solution in place for updating data in NSLDS during the outage and restoring normal NSLDS reporting.
Please note: Any data processed by the Clearinghouse is immediately available for our other services, including EnrollmentVerify, DegreeVerify, StudentTracker, the Postsecondary Data Partnership, Myhub, Reverse Transfer, and any other service in which your school participates that utilizes your enrollment data. The Clearinghouse continues to process any new enrollment and degree data we receive in chronological order.
*If your school has modified its standard NSLDS Enrollment Roster schedule with the Clearinghouse and does not follow a monthly reporting cycle, you should refer to FSA’s announcement for additional instructions regarding expectations for resolving NSLDS enrollment roster errors in a timely manner.
Keeping You in Compliance
If you have compliance-related questions, contact our Audit Resource Center at auditresource@studentclearinghouse.org.
Additional information and background on the recent NSLDS delays are available from the resources below:
- NSLDS: Documentation of Enrollment Reporting and Postscreening Delays for Audit Purposes
- NSLDS: Additional Information About the Modernized Website #5
- NSLDS: Additional Information About the Modernized Website #7
- NSLDS: Additional Information About the Modernized Website #9
- NSLDS: Additional Information About the Modernized Website #10
- NSLDS: Upcoming November Enrollment Roster Dissemination