NMC told: Stop being 3rd party to Pell grants

House Education Committee chair Justo Quitugua has advised the Northern Marianas College to stop acting as a middleman for Pell Grant student applications amid its problematic standing due to unresolved financial reports.

“Stop being a third party. Let the students apply directly online. It’s faster. They’d get the result right away,” said Quitugua in an interview.

The college has failed to resolve its reimbursement standing with the U.S. Department of Education’s Pell Grant program for over a year now, resulting in the continued delay of the release of grant money to its students. This is despite the college’s hiring of a California-based consultant to help with the submission of clean grant documents to USDE.

Quitugua said that based on his consultation with NMC officials, the college has hired a company to review NMC’s Pell Grant applications prior to submission to USDE.

“But even with the consultant, only a batch of applications was cleared. NMC is required by USDE to submit three consecutive batches of cleared applications. If there’s only one that’s okay, they’ll have to do it all over again,” said the lawmaker.

NMC reportedly pays the company $50 per application.

“They’re only paying half. The other half or $25 is paid when the application is cleared,” said Quitugua. “But they [NMC] better work with the consultant and stop as a third party.”

Quitugua said the college just needs to assign a staff overseeing the students’ direct online application.

“NMC said they’re going that route,” he said.

NMC this week apologized to students for the inconvenience resulting from NMC being placed under reimbursement status.

NMC students who applied for Pell Grants last school year have not received their money up to now.

Their situation, however, is being considered by the administration in that that they are allowed to enroll for fall this year and get textbooks under their Pell Grant account.

NMC financial director Raaj Kurapati has admitted that “the fact that we’re on [reimbursement status] is not the students’ fault; it’s the institution’s fault.”

He said the present status was caused by “errors we’ve made in the past as an institution.”

The USDE placed NMC on reimbursement status instead of advance status due to the NMC’s failure to submit audits on time in the last four years.

USDE said the reimbursement status would only be lifted as soon as NMC submits three consecutive batches of student applications that contain an error rate of 10 percent or less.

Kurapati maintained that the college is now up-to-date with its audits.