NMC told to train financial aid staff

The U.S. Department of Education has recommended further training for financial aid personnel at the Northern Marianas College to avoid problems in federal aid compliance.

This comes even as the college remains under reimbursement basis for Pell Grants, according to NMC board chair Kimberlyn-King-Hinds.

“We’re still in that category. We don’t know when we are going to get off from that,” she said.

King-Hinds and acting NMC president Tony Deleon Guerrero recently met with USDE officials in California to discuss the college’s Pell Grant status, among other things.

During the meeting, federal officials identified “training” and “better communication” as things to do for NMC, King-Hinds said.

“A recommendation is for us to invest in more training for our financial aid personnel,” she added.

Earlier this year, the college said the reimbursement status would be lifted when NMC submits to USDE three batches of applications that contain minimal errors. The board chair said this has not happened so far.

The college was placed on Pell reimbursement status—instead of advance status—due to the college’s failure to submit audits on time in the last four years.

As of March, NMC said it has completed and submitted the audit reports for fiscal years 2000, 2001, and 2002. The 2003 audit was up for submission last April.

In a report to a House of Representatives committee, Guerrero had said that although the audits were now up to date, “our Title IV [financial aid] case team decided not to return the college to ‘advance status’ due to the level of exceptions noted in the files during this ‘reimbursement status.’”

“The case team is requiring that the college demonstrate that it has addressed the issues identified by submitting three consecutive batches of files that contain an exception rate of 10 percent or less,” he said.

NMC is now working with a consultant who reviews packets of student applications before sending them to San Francisco.

Guerrero said the NMC’s Financial Aid Office, headed by director Ray Basa, is narrowing down the deficiencies so that all student applications would be free from errors.

Guerrero said all files for fall 2003 and spring 2004 should be submitted by May or June 2004. If students submitted all the correct and necessary information in their files, all reimbursements should be in by July 2004, he said.

In his March 16 letter to House Education Committee chairman Justo Quitugua, Guerrero reported that a task force has been formed to ensure that the Pell grant fiasco is not repeated.

Recently, USDE informed NMC about the disqualification of Rota and Tinian students from receiving Pell grants as they had been classified as belonging to different campuses, but the USDE reconsidered its decision following an appeal from the college. NMC said students on Tinian and Rota are now eligible to receive the grant.

Pell Grant provides funding to low-income students pursuing an associate or bachelor’s degree nationwide. The grant is awarded either individually or through the college. Each qualifying NMC student receives a maximum of $3,000 in Pell funds a year. The award increases every year to compensate for higher tuition costs as well as other increased educational expenses.