Feedback Sought on Department of Education’s Compliance Calendar

During the 2008 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), NAICU and other members of the higher education community recommended to Congress that it require the Department of Education to develop a compliance resource that summarized the reporting and disclosure requirements related to institutions’ eligibility to participate in the Title IV, Higher Education Act (HEA) student assistance programs. Congress agreed, and the HEA included a mandate for such a resource. Now, the U.S. Department of Education has finally released the long-awaited “compliance calendar” and is looking for feedback on its first draft.

The document lists the federal reporting and compliance due dates for the upcoming academic year. The calendar will be updated and reissued each year to reflect any changes in the timing or reporting requirements of the Department of Education. In addition to reporting dates, the calendar also provides useful contextual information on the statutory authority/applicable regulations related to each required disclosure, as well as the date each filing is due, and how and to whom the required information should be provided. Finally, it is worth noting that the calendar is broken into three sections: reports, disclosures, and disclosures related to loans.

While the publication of the compliance calendar represents a step in the right direction, NAICU recognizes that certain information is still missing, incomplete, or unclear. Since the recently published calendar provides the template for all future updates, we are working to compile a list of any additions or modifications that would make it more complete and easier to use. These suggestions will be shared and discussed with our colleagues in the higher education community and then sent to the Department of Education for its consideration.

If you have any comments, suggestions, or potential edits to the compliance calendar template, please send them to Tim Powers by Thursday, May 21.