National Student Clearinghouse Overview

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) is a nonprofit organization that can act as your school's reporting agent for reports required for the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS).

Here's a quick reference to the organizations and what they do.

Two Kinds of Reports are Required

The NSLDS requires two kinds of reports:

• Enrollment

• Degree Verification

Through the NSC you can file both enrollment and degrees reports.

Using the NSC as Your NSLDS Agent

Using the NSC as your NSLDS agent has several advantages.

·       It saves you the task of programming directly for the NSLDS reports on enrollment and degrees.

·       The NSC processes forms and requests related to the Federal Family Education Loan Program and the Federal Direct Loan Program.

o     Student Status Confirmation Reports (SSCRs)

o     Enrollment Verification Requests (EVRs)

o     Loan deferment forms

·       The NSC will report to NSLDS for you on a schedule that will allow you to avoid ad hoc reporting of students who leave school, drop to less than half-time, or change addresses.

·       The NSC's services are free to its client schools.

·       The NSC provides information and support for schools reporting to and audited by the Department of Education.

·       If your school uses both the Core Service and DegreeVerify and enrolls for NSC's EnrollmentVerify functionality, your students can use the NSC Student Self-Tracker at no charge.

To contract with NSC as your NSLDS agent, contact them here:

National Student Clearinghouse

2300 Dulles Station Blvd. Suite 220

Herndon, VA 20171

(703) 742-4200

http://www.studentclearinghouse.org

Reporting Schedule

Enrollment Reports

Determine your school's reporting schedule with the NSC. The timing and frequency of reports depends on your school's calendar. Schools often run the first report in the first few days of a term.

There are three types of enrollment reports.

Degree verification Reports

Your school works out a reporting schedule with your NSC representative in conjunction with the degree periods your school creates.

Data and Format Requirements

The NSC, on behalf of NSLDS, has very specific requirements data and report formats.

Instead of putting information about the school and year/term being reported on each student record, you are required to report a group of related records. Make sure each FICE/branch combination has the following:

·       One Header record identifying information about the school (FICE and branch codes) and about the year/term (description, date of the report, whether it is a "standard" term)

·       Multiple student detail records containing each student's SSN, name and address, birth date if known, enrollment status, and, when required, status date and anticipated graduation date

·       One Trailer record giving the total number of records in the group of records and a count of all records in each of the status codes; this count includes the Header and Trailer records

Although the NSC reports are used for financial aid purposes, you must report information on all eligible enrolled students, not just students currently receiving financial aid. Reporting on all eligible students ensures that no students who need to be reported are skipped. You may need to make sure that students in the following categories are included:

·       Students who are writing a thesis or dissertation

·       Students who are enrolled at your school but are currently taking course work at another school under a cooperative arrangement

The following students should not be included in the reports are those who are not eligible for Federal student loans. These include:

·       Foreign students who do not have a valid Social Security Number and who are not eligible for Federal student loans

·       Medical students who are in internships or fellowship programs and who are not eligible for Federal student loans

·       Students who are taking courses at your school but who are enrolled at a different school (visiting students)

For detailed information on which students need to be included and which students need to be excluded, see the guidelines from the NSC or contact your NSC representative.

Guidelines for Using the NSC Program to Create a Report

The following guidelines are used when creating an NSC report:

·       One record per student can be reported. All data for a student should be under a single ID #.

·       Students are identified to NSLDS through the NSC by Social Security Number. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT CORRECT SSNs APPEAR in the BIOGRAPH_MASTER table. Even if you are using SSNs for ID #s, you MUST ALSO have the SSNs in the BIOGRAPH_MASTER table.

·       The address reported for students will be from the *LHP (Legal Home Permanent) record from the AddressMaster table.

·       Students' birth dates are not required, but they will be reported if the information is available in the BIOGRAPH_MASTER table.

Using J1 for NSC Reports

If your school has contracted with NSC, you can use J1 Desktop to collect the data you need and to create reports. There are quite a few J1 Desktop windows to set up, but once that's done, they don't need much attention.

J1 Desktop automatically collects much of the information you need for NSC reports, and it generates the reports, too. Although NSC's definitions for some of the data may be different from your school's definitions, such as full-time status or enrollment status, J1 Desktop Registration helps translate your data for NSC reports. However, it's possible that you don't currently track all the information that NSC requires, such as anticipated graduation dates. In such cases, you may need to do some manual editing of records in order to complete NSC reports.

Advising Module

We strongly recommend purchasing the Advising module. It tracks how courses contribute to a program. Without it, you have to report manually on course contribution for each program.

Different Reporting Processes for Different Scenarios

One thing that confuses school administrators is the various processes you use depending on the situation, for example:

• First ever reporting with Jenzabar software

• First run of the term

• Second run of the term

Learn what to do in these scenarios in the NSC Enrollment Reporting Processes topic.

FAQ

We don't use the J1 Advising module. Will we be able to process NSC Reports in J1?

What if a student is in more than 6 programs?

How are elective courses calculated toward the program credit load if they aren't specified in the Advising Tree—even if the program allows electives?

I understand that the process looks at majors and certifications, but does it look at concentrations, too?

If a student is enrolled only in credits applying to their minor, are they considered eligible for financial aid?

Where can I see what NSC enrollment status we reported?

What if we don't realize a student's status changes as we're preparing the report, so the report is incorrect?

What if a student's status changes between terms?

We keep past degrees as 'Active' even after graduation. We simply add a new row if the student returns for an additional degree. Can we keep this process, or must we change the way we handle active degrees?

We don't do NSC reporting. Must we set up the tables?

Learn More

Setting Up for NSC Reporting

NSC Enrollment Reporting Process

NSC Degree Verification Reporting Process

Reporting Ethnic and Race Information to the NSC

External Resources

National Student Clearinghouse

National Student Clearinghouse Training