The objective of our audit was to determine whether Federal Student Aid (FSA) designed and implemented processes that provided reasonable assurance that it reallocated unexpended award year 2016–2017 campus-based student financial assistance program funds in accordance with the Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria Education Relief Act of 2017.
FSA did not design and implement processes to provide reasonable assurance that it reallocated unexpended award year 2016–2017 campus-based student financial assistance program funds. First, FSA did not design and implement processes that provided reasonable assurance that it identified all schools participating in the campus-based student financial assistance programs that were affected by or enrolled students affected by a qualifying disaster before reallocating unexpended award year 2016–Federal Work Study and other funds. Second, FSA did not design and implement processes that provided reasonable assurance that it would give preference to schools located in affected areas when reallocating FWS funds. Instead, FSA generally applied formulas like those designed for annually allocating campus-based student financial assistance program funds to all schools participating in those programs.
We made three recommendations; we recommended that FSA (1) require the schools identified that improperly received Federal Work Study reallocations to return the funds, (2) reevaluate its reallocation of unexpended award year 2016–2017 Federal Work Study funds and ensure that all affected schools and all schools enrolling affected students were correctly reallocated the funds, and (3) ensure its policies and procedures for disaster response direct employees to develop plans specific to new laws authorizing special funding to schools or students.
Oversight and Monitoring—Student Financial Assistance Programs
See more work in this area on our Disaster Recovery page.