Roberta Johnson Interim Director Iowa State University Common Origination and Disbursement A First Year School’s Story Roberta Johnson Interim Director Iowa State University

Enrollment: 27,898 Pell recipients: 5,412 Stafford recipients: 14,550 Iowa State University Enrollment: 27,898 Pell recipients: 5,412 Stafford recipients: 14,550

A history of firsts. . . First school to participate in electronic Pell First school to participate in electronic transmissions with the MDE First Iowa school to develop electronic FFEL transmissions and EFT First year Direct Loan participant Access America participant First year COD participant

Technology concerns Difficulty with file specifications Examples not clear Initially files sent with wrong XML just vanished; now a response is sent Changing of tag names: 02-03 files came back with 03-04 tags School use field has disappeared

Technology concerns One record vs. multiple records has caused some problems Difficult for school to identify where the problem may be due to lack of flow chart COD web site invaluable in reviewing data although not always consistent

Technology concerns Upgrade conversions Testing Customer service

Origination concerns Electronic signatures: signatures didn’t always link to loans No confirmation to borrower that electronic signature received/processed Credit check concerns Missing paper promissory notes Customer service

Reconciliation concerns Have to call to request Pell cumulative file Receive Direct Loan monthly detail, no cumulative file No SL-732 report Many unknowns as we haven’t closed out 2002-03. Customer service

Customer service concerns Customer service representatives don’t understand “big picture” Customer service representatives don’t have authority to fix the problem Issues fall off the list without resolution No follow-up School does all the work

Suggestions for improvement Functionality of web site Allow schools to check status of issues via web Send e-mails to schools as issues are resolved Send e-mails to students to confirm receipt of e-MPN TEST, TEST, TEST

Questions