The Department of Education (ED) has released the latest editions of both, the 2-year Cohort Default Rates (CDR) and the 3-year CDR. As is the case annually when there are both 2- and 3-year rates calculated, the 2-year CDRs were released one week before the 3-year CDRs. The 2-year CDR rates were released on September 16, 2013. The 3-year CDR rates were released on September 23, 2013.
Since the CDR rates are crucial to a school’s continued participation in Title IV Federal Student Aid programs, it is vitally important that each institution review its CDR packages that ED distributed, and specifically the data used to calculate the rates to ensure it is accurate. These CDR notification packages were distributed via the Student Aid Internet Gateway (SAIG). The information was sent to the SAIG mailbox for the destination point that the school had designated for that purpose. The information was sent only to those schools enrolled in the Electronic Cohort Default Rate (eCDR) process. Therefore, if a school has not signed up for the eCDR process, the information was not distributed to the school. If an institution did not sign up for eCDR, it is incumbent upon the school to access the CDR information by downloading the data from the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) through the NSLDS Professional Access Web site.
If a school finds that there is data it believes to be inaccurate, it must file an appeal to correct the data. There are a number of different items used in the CDR calculations that may be appealed. These various items have individual appeal deadlines of various lengths, typically ranging from 15-30 days from the date the appeal process opens. The appeal process for the 2-year CDR began on September 24, 2013. The appeal process for the 3-year CDR begins on October 1, 2013. It is imperative that schools review their CDRs and ascertain which items may be ones for which it needs to appeal and ensure it submits the appropriate appeal(s) within the applicable deadlines.
Should FAME clients have questions about the eCDR process, you may contact your Customer Service Representative via support.fameinc.com.
(EA091613; EA092313)