6.7.0.0 Product Brief

Product Release Summary

This Product Brief includes a summary of Regent 6.7.0.0, information on key enhancements, and direction to additional documentation and information.

Product Release Description

The 6.7 release addresses product defects as listed in the “Bugs” section of the Release Notes, and also enhancements and new features including:

• Important Information about Receiving 2024-2025 ISIRs from the FTI-SAIG Mailbox

• Changes to Final 24-25 FAFSA/Update Access Application

• Labeling of Federal Tax Information (FTI) Data

• Impact of 2024-2025 Data Changes on Tasks

• 'Review Potential IASG/CFH' Task Trigger

• Requirements: Update Dependent Unsubsidized Only Awarding 2024-2025 ISIR Updates

• 2024-2025 ISIR Corrections and Comparisons

• Verification Worksheet and Support 2024-2025

• New and Modified Document Configuration Options for Regent Review 2024-2025

• Foreign Income Exclusion

• Update COA Setup/Functionality to Accommodate 2024-2025 ISIR Changes

• Housing Status for use in Cost of Attendance (COA) 2024-2025

• SBL Updates for 2024-2025

• Provisionally Independent Students

• Update Fund Setup and MAP Estimated Awarding to Accommodate 2024-2025 ISIR Changes

• Update Packaging Grids to Accommodate 2024-2025 ISIR Changes

• Ranking and Priority Tool Updates for Regulatory

• Implement Awarding with SAI and Pell Enrollment Intensity Percentage (EIP)

• Update Pell ‘Disburse by Enrollment’ Option with Enrollment Intensity Percentage (EIP)

• Also: Information on Upcoming COD Upgrade

• Regent Access - Configurable Header Text for Student and Parent Portal Added

Further details on enhancements/new features and a complete list of bug fixes as well as any new scripts and data views can be found in the Release Notes. 

The Release Notes also contain information on new configuration options.

Other Documentation 

In addition to the Product Brief, the following documentation is also available: 

System Requirements

Any client currently using Regent Award may take Regent 6.7 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Review may take Regent 6.7 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Access may take Regent 6.7 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Fund may take Regent 6.7 for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Award may take the Regent 6.7 version of Student Experience for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Review may take the Regent 6.7 version of Student Experience for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Any client currently using Regent Fund may take the Regent 6.7 version of Student Experience for UAT and ultimately production upgrade.

Some Regent Access clients may take the Regent 6.7 version of Student Experience for UAT and ultimately production upgrade. Please work with your Account Manager for additional information. Note: All current customer-specific functionality in the legacy portal may not be available in the new Student Experience portal at this time.

Clients using Regent Award for Salesforce will not need to upgrade to a new Salesforce application version in order to continue current functionality.

New Feature Overview for Regent 6.7

Important Information about Receiving 2024-2025 ISIRs from the FTI-SAIG Mailbox

As previously communicated, a new version of TDClient or EDConnect is required to access the new FTI-SAIG mailbox which will be used solely for FPS to send 2024-2025 ISIR files to schools. All other SAIG files including 2024-2025 ISIR corrections will continue to use the existing SAIG mailbox.

Schools have been executing the new FTI-SAIG enrollment agreements that are required to gain access to their new FTI-SAIG mailboxes. All other COD/ISIR/NSLDS/etc. files and ISIRs for FAY 2023-2024 will continue to use the current SAIG mailbox.

After extensive questioning and follow up with various ED entities, Regent has been advised that there will be no test FTI-SAIG mailbox functionality available to vendors.  Regent is working to develop support for client processing with TDClient via the FTI-SAIG mailbox similar to that already in place for the current SAIG mailbox but will be unable to test this before clients attempt to draw down 2024-2025 ISIRs from their production FTI-SAIG mailboxes.

Regent plans to have this FTI-SAIG support in place in an upcoming release.  Until this is in place and functioning properly, clients will need to access 2024-2025 ISIR files from their FTI-SAIG mailbox directly (not from within Regent) using EDConnect or TDClient. Clients will either 1) place those files on a secure drive and use the ISIR process in REM to import them or 2) drop the ISIR files in FileWatcher in SFTP so they will be imported automatically.

We anticipate that this will be a short-term interim solution where current processing will continue as is within Regent except for the 2024-2025 ISIR files. Without testing capability, Regent has limited capability to anticipate and address consequences of the TDClient upgrade within Regent.

Important Note: Clients MUST provide RTM and INI files (along with the associated approval code) in order to use FTI-SAIG functionality in Regent for 2024-2025. Please work with your Account Manager/Project Manager to provide in a secure manner.

2024-2025 Regent Access Form Updates Per Finalized FAFSA (RS-27006)

The 2024-2025 Master Access Questionnaire has been updated to align with changes in the latest published version of the 2024-2025 FAFSA.

• Group instructions were updated for Student Assets and Parent Assets.

• Help text for several questions was updated.

  • Example: The following help text was added to the Child Support Received question and the Assets group: "If the answer is zero or the question does not apply, enter 0".

• Tax form line numbers were updated in help text for the tax return questions.

• References to "Earned income tax credit" were adjusted to "Earned income credit".

NOTE: Approximately a month after FAFSA and Access applications went live, the federal SAI calculation was updated by the Department in order to implement inflation adjustments stipulated in statute. Regent’s 6.7 Release contains the updated formula and tables for SAI calculations. However, any Access applications submitted prior to the Release 6.7 upgrade will have SAIs calculated with the original (now incorrect) federal SAI calculation. If clients need an updated SAI for a student, the student can edit, re-sign, and have their parent re-sign their application (if needed) to recalculate their SAI. Regent is also developing a means to reprocess these early applications to provide the applicants with updated SAIs. Your Account Manager will keep you posted on this development.

Labeling of Federal Tax Information (FTI) Data (RS-25751)

Regent has taken steps to ensure Federal Tax Information (FTI) from ISIRs is labeled as Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) where that data is stored, viewed, or printed.  The affected fields are those listed in Electronic Announcement: General-23-34.  The database field names begin with CUI, and FTI/CUI is displayed on screens within Regent in specific sections for each contributor with the required section header and footer identifying the data as CUI. 

No FTI/CUI fields are included in automated Activity Log entries.  Users should NOT include actual FTI/CUI data in any manual notes within Regent for security reasons (especially if those entries could be exported to another system or viewed by users who do not have ISIR access).

Standard Regent Data Views will not include any FTI/CUI data due to difficulty protecting access to specific Data Views within the library.

Clients with an immediate need for FTI/CUI for external purposes may contact their Account Managers/Project Managers to have FTI added to their available Data Views. Please note that should a client make a manual FTI/CUI note or export any FTI/CUI out of a Regent instance via Data Views or some other means, the client is responsible to add the required ‘CUI//SP-TAX’ label to any fields or columns holding FTI/CUI data and it is the client’s responsibility to ensure that CUI/FTI is protected and accessible for use only for approved purposes related to determining eligibility for and awarding student financial aid. There are no permissions specific to a particular Data View, so appropriate access to the data must be ensured by the client by limiting overall access to Data Views or by some other means developed by the client. See the Electronic Announcement noted above for more information on the required treatment of FTI/CUI.

Important! The use of FTI information is limited to the determination of an applicant’s eligibility for student financial aid and the amount for which they are eligible and disclosure to state higher education agencies or designated scholarship organizations.

Impact of 2024-2025 Data Changes on Tasks (RS-25629)

Labels and values displayed in task bodies are updated to reflect new 2024-2025 ISIR data. For example, ‘dependency status’ is now ‘dependency model’ and will display Provisional Independent when it applies to the student. All EFC values previously displayed in the body of Regent tasks will reflect the full year SAI beginning with 2024-2025 with the exception of a negative SAI. A negative SAI will display as zero to reflect its usage in determining remaining unmet need.

The existing ‘CPS Pushed/Generated ISIR’ task type will not be used for 2024-2025. The new ‘FPS Generated/Pushed ISIR’ task type will function for FAYs starting with 2024-2025 in the same manner as the existing task has done for previous FAYs. Clients will need to add and configure the new ‘FPS Generated/Pushed ISIR' for 2024-2025. The current ‘CPS Generated/Pushed ISIR’ will only continue to work through the 2023-2024 year.

'Review Potential IASG/CFH' Task Trigger (RS-25289)

Beginning with 2024-2025, the old ‘Review Potential IASG’ task is replaced with a new ‘Review Potential IASG or CFH’ task that clients must add and configure. The task will trigger when the applicant responded ‘yes’ to the FAFSA question about whether they had a parent killed in the line of duty, the student is less than 33 years of age as of January 1^st prior to the FAFSA FAY and the ISIR does not indicate that the applicant has already been determined to be eligible for either IASG or Children of Fallen Heroes awards. Upon receiving this task, the school user will request documentation from the student and determine if they meet the eligibility requirements for either IASG or CFH.  If the student is eligible, the school user will update the student record through the FAFSA Partner Portal, thus generating a new ISIR with the relevant eligibility flag.  Upon receipt of the new ISIR transaction, Regent Award will package full Pell for the student. Regent Access users who may not be using task functionality within Regent but wish to identify students who may meet these eligibility requirements will evaluate application data via the Export Access Database Extract File (CSV file) to identify students reporting they have a parent killed in the line of duty (column parentKilledintheLineofDuty) and who meet the above stated age requirement (column studentsDateofBirth).

Requirements: Update Dependent Unsubsidized Only Awarding 2024-2025 ISIR Updates (RS-26693)

As in the past, a 2024-2025 FAFSA student who does not meet any of the eligibility requirements for Independent or Provisional Independent status may elect to not provide parent information and thus receive only dependent level unsubsidized loans.  Beginning with the 2024-2025 FAY, the old special condition question is sunset and such a FAFSA student is asked if they want ‘unsubsidized awards only’.  If the student responds ‘yes’ to this question they receive a dependency model of ‘Rejected Dependent – X’ and will not have a calculated SAI.  The ‘Review Dependent Record Unsub Only’ task is updated for FAYs starting with 2024-2025 to require a ‘yes’ answer to the ‘Unsub Only’ question as well as a Reject Code of 14. 

A Regent Award school user will evaluate documentation provided by such students and determine if dependent level Unsubsidized awards should be made. These awards must be added manually.

A Regent Review school user will see these students will be included in the Regent Review ‘Ready to Package’ report as long as any other blocking documents have been cleared.

Note: The financial aid community is reporting a high incidence of students requesting ‘Unsub Only’ on their FAFSAs and there is a concern that a good number of these did not intend to skip consideration for Pell Grant and other need-based awards. Clients may assign a document to communicate options to these students by configuring a document requirement associated with Comment Code 049: “You indicated that your parents are unwilling to provide their information on your FAFSA form. Therefore the only federal student aid you may be eligible to receive is a Direct Unsubsidized Loan. The financial aid office at your college or career school may contact you to complete your application. If you want to be considered for other types of federal student aid, you must log in to http://StudentAid.gov , select “Make a Correction,” and add your parent to your application.”

Regent Access Users: For Regent Access, a student who is not otherwise independent and is completing a Regent Access application is presented with the question ‘Are the student’s parents unwilling to provide their information, but the student does not have an unusual circumstance that prevents them from contacting the parents or obtaining their information?  A ‘yes’ response will generate the ‘Rejected Dependent – X’ status for the Access application and there will be no SAI.

As documented in the 6.6.0.0 Product Brief, the correct status of ‘Rejected Dependent’ (dependency status code 'X') has been implemented in the 6.7 Release. Upon upgrade to Access Release 6.7, clients can request the on-demand script RS-26954 to update the most recent 2024-2025 Access application for a student with a current (temporary) status of ‘Provisional Independent – Z’ who answered ‘yes’ to the above question to a dependency model of ‘Rejected Dependent – X’.  With the script, the provisional SAI will be removed from affected students, the ISIR transaction number will be incremented, the ISIR records will be re-exported to the client SFTP mailbox and an Activity Log entry will note the changes. For clients using the Export Access Database Extract File (CSV), the updated status will be included in the next export. Access clients can work with their Account Manager or Project Manager to run the RS-26954 script, identify if any students are affected, and apply the script if needed. 

2024-2025 ISIR Corrections and Comparisons (RS-25614)

 Screens for ISIR Corrections and ISIR Comparisons have been updated to display 2024-2025 ISIR data fields, and FTI/CUI data is appropriately labeled.

 For corrections, please note that NASFAA has confirmed that whenever corrected or updated ISIR data is sent that will override FTI/CUI, the ‘PJ Flag’ should be set to a value of ‘Yes’ to ensure the SAI is recalculated using the manual entries. ED has indicated the increased use of the PJ flag should not trigger program reviews, and NASFAA is advocating that this be a one-year use of the flag, hopefully returning to the more limited traditional use in the future.

Also, please note that ED is not yet supporting correction files and that schools will not be able to make ISIR corrections until some point in the weeks following the initial processing of ISIRs by ED. Please do not export any 2024-2025 ISIR corrections until the Department of Education confirms their systems are ready to process 2024-2025 corrections.

Message classes are carried over as ‘Active’ for the new 2024-2025 FAY if they are active for the 2023-2024 FAY.  Mark 2024-2025 message classes as ‘transmit manually’ or deactivate them until such time as you do intend for them to process – do not process ISIR corrections until the Department of Education confirms they are ready to process them.  In addition to deactivating the SAIG message classes, do not run 2024-2025 export processes manually for corrections until the Department is ready to process them.  If you do not manage your SAIG processes via configuration in the User Interface and they are scheduled by Regent, submit a CZ ticket and contact your Account Manager to disable 2024-2025 correction file exports for the present.

Note: If wishing to override all CUI/FTI values for a contributor, a non-blank value must be entered for each field that has CUI/FTI data.  If there is no positive or negative value intended for a corresponding CUI/FTI field with data, be sure to enter a zero in the manual field or the FTI/CUI data will continue to be used for SAI calculation.

  2024-2025 Verification Worksheet and Support (RS-24850)

The verification requirements for 2024-2025 are not much different from those in previous years, but there are some changes:

• ISIR Federal Taxpayer Information (FTI) income elements from the Internal Revenue Service are considered to be already verified. If those values were not overridden by manual entries for SAI calculation, nothing further is required to verify those fields.

• While verification of student spouse or parent spouse income information in cases where the student or spouse did not file a joint return with their current spouse is not new, beginning in 2024-2025 there are separate ISIR fields to support entries for a student spouse or parent spouse/partner rather than adding them to the original student or parent values.

• Note Regarding Marital Status Changes: There is no 2024-2025 reject code or C-code associated with a marital status change, so the 2-step marital change process currently in place does not apply to the new year. Beginning in 2024-2025, if the FAA determines it is appropriate to report a change or update to a student’s marital status, the change will be effective upon processing of the ISIR corrections. The process within Regent Review when a marital status change is noted in the Verification Worksheet (beginning with 2024-2025) is as follows for schools wishing to allow such changes:

  • If Regent Review school wishes to allow updates when marital status change reported on VWS:​

    • Enable Marital Status Change via Portal Setting​

    • Student answers yes to the marital status changed question on the VWS​

    • Student signs VWS signature page​

    • Marital Status Documentation document persists in Needed status​

    • Student provides documentation​

    • FAA determines if student can change their marital status​

    • If yes, a correction is made to the ISIR, which will trigger a new ISIR​

    • FAA adds a Verification Worksheet (VWS) Revised Request document to complete verification with the new marital status

• When making 2024-2025 ISIR corrections that will affect eligibility, the ‘PJ Flag’ must be set to a value of ‘Yes’ to ensure the Federal Processing System (FPS) recalculates the student’s SAI with the new values. Per NASFAA, this guidance applies even in cases such as verification corrections when the FAA is not actually using professional judgment to justify the corrections.

•  All year references in the Verification Worksheet have been incrementally updated for the new Federal Award Year.

Note on Family Size: There are three ways Family Size can be reported on the ISIR:

• If there is a value for Updated Student Family Size (or Updated Parent Family Size for dependent students) field, this is the value provided by the contributor and is always the number used to calculate SAI.

• If the ‘updated’ field is blank but there is a number in the Assumed Student Family Size (or Assumed Parent Family Size) field, this number is used to calculate SAI.

• If both Updated and Assumed values are blank, then IRS exemptions are used to calculate the Family Size.

• Non-filers do not have any of the Family Size values on the ISIR as this is not used to calculate their SAIs.

The VWS will ask for information on family members when a V1 or V5 ISIR has an ‘updated’ family size value. However, if the ‘assumed’ value is used for SAI calculation, the grid asking for information on family members will not display and users should collect this information by another means such as an uploaded document. An upcoming release will update VWS to display the family size section for ISIRs using both the ‘assumed’ family size values in addition to the ‘updated’ family size values.

Annual Document Updates in Support of the Verification Worksheet:

Each year, annual documents must be added to a client's Document Setup before ISIRs are imported for the new year in order for Regent Review's Verification Worksheet to function properly. Please be certain to test this first in a QA environment before updating your Production instance. 

A list of the standard Regent Review documents for existing client use can be found here:

 The following document containing verification process use cases is also available for client testing:

Please follow the steps below to update the Regent Review document requirements for the 2024-2025 FAY.

1. Manually add new 2024-2025 document requirements under Document Setup in the Regent Award User Interface for the forms on this list:

2. Important notes:

   1. The Document Name must not be modified on these documents or it will affect the functioning of the Verification Worksheet in Regent Review.

   2. However, a customer can update the Document Message and can update the Document ID.  A Document ID is provided in these files and is required for the CCM import process to work.  You can use the sample ID and replace Test with your Campus ID, or you can create your own unique externalID for each new document requirement.

   3. Also, take note that any file attachments needed for these documents must be added manually through Document Setup. 

   4. Finally, ISIRs for the NEW (2024-2025) aid year should not be imported into Regent Award until this Document Setup is complete.

ISIRs for the NEW aid year should not be imported into Regent Award until this Document Setup is complete.

  Foreign Income Exclusion

Foreign Income Exclusion amounts are added to AGI when calculating the SAI, but are not added to AGI when determining if a student is eligible for Maximum Pell. Beginning in 2024-2025, if a student has Maximum Pell and a Foreign Income Exclusion amount greater than zero, the FAA must evaluate whether the addition of that amount would affect the student’s eligibility for Maximum Pell and if so, use PJ to update the AGI amount and reduce the Foreign Income Exclusion amount so the student will be awarded appropriately. If an application has a Foreign Income Exclusion amount and the student does not have Maximum Pell but is selected for verification, the Foreign Income Exclusion amount must be verified.

To identify students with the Foreign Income Exclusion, regardless of the student being selected for verification, the client should create an office use only document using the Foreign Income Exclusion comment codes 040, 076, 096, and 127.

2024-2025 New and Modified Document Configuration Options (RS-26760)

Per the revised 2024-2025 ISIR, new configuration options have been added to Document Setup in Regent.

• 'Select the Process that this document facilitates:’ field on the General tab:

  • When ‘2023-2024 and Prior Federal Award Years:’ checkbox is NOT selected, the following four new options will be available in the dropdown. When one of these options is selected, the document status will be updated to ‘Waived’ if the IRS Response for the related contributor is Successful:

    • Facilitate IRS Response Code- Parent

    • Facilitate IRS Response Code- Parent Spouse or Partner

    • Facilitate IRS Response Code- Student

    • Facilitate IRS Response Code- Student Spouse

• Incarcerated Applicant Flag on the ISIR Assignment tab:

  • When ‘2023-2024 and Prior Federal Award Years:’ checkbox is NOT selected, documents can be assigned based on Incarcerated Applicant Flag flag values:

    • Correctional Facility Address file

    • Received via P.O. Box

    • Incarcerated Applicant Flag set by FAA

    • Incarcerated Applicant Flag removed by FAA

    • Blank

  • This new option is grouped with some existing options in a new section labeled ‘Processing Information’.

Note for Regent Review Users: The verification document will be configured to assign on ISIR Import if the student has a V1 or V5 and an incarcerated flag of ‘Blank’ or ‘4=Incarcerated Applicant Flag removed by FAA’.

ISIRs for the NEW aid year should not be imported into Regent Award until this Document Setup is complete.

Important Reminder:

Update COA Setup/Functionality to Accommodate 2024-2025 ISIR Changes (RS-25613)

Configuration options in Cost Setup have been updated to reflect recent legislation and 2024-2025 functionality.  Within the setup and on the Awards Tab, the names of the Federal Cost Categories have been updated. For example, ‘Room and board’ now displays as ‘Food and housing’ and a new ‘Professional Licensure, Certification, or First Professional Credential’ category is now available. These new labels will display within Regent for all FAYS, but only Cost Item names configured by clients will display to students within Student Experience portal​.

The Dependency Models (statuses) available for COA configuration now include the Provisional Independent status and are:

• Dependent (Dependency Model is ‘D-Dependent’)

• Independent (Dependency Model is ‘I-Independent’ and Child or other Dependents is ‘blank’)

• Provisional Independent (Dependency Model is ‘Z-Provisional Independent’)

• Independent with Dependents (Dependency Model is ‘I-Independent’ and Child or other Dependents is ‘Yes’)

Housing Status for use in Cost of Attendance (COA) 2024-2025 (RS-25806)

As student Housing Status is not available on the 2024-2025 ISIR, users will need to provide a student’s housing status using at least one of three ways to have a Room and Board component in COA and have Pell COA properly assigned: 1) a configurable ‘Assumed COA’ option for Independent vs Dependent students, 2) a User Defined Field (UDF) sent via the Student Batch Load (SBL), or 3) a manual update adding a Housing Status UDF. A UDF (whether via SBL or Manual) entry will take precedence over an ‘Assumed COA’ value. Two new values added are ‘OnCampusWithDependents’ and ‘MilitaryHousing’.

The ‘Assumed Housing Status’ option is available for configuration in Institution, Campus, and Site setup for Dependent vs Independent students. The default setting is ‘OffCampus’.

For the UDF option available for 2024-2025 and forward, if a ‘housingStatusCode’ UDF is present with one of the following values, the value will be used to determine the student’s housing status for the period within the UDF’s effective start and end dates. If no effective dates are sent via SBL or set manually, the ‘housingStatusCode’ UDF will determine the student’s housing status for 2024-2025 forward. 

1 - OnCampus

2 - OnCampusWithDependents

3 - WithParent

4 - OffCampus

5 - MilitaryHousing

6 - Blank  

The updated SBL schema is available in the Customer Zone Knowledge Base at: Student Batch Load (SBL) - Customer Zone Knowledge Base. The remaining links on the SBL article will be updated when the release is certified.

SBL Updates for 2024-2025 (RS-25764)

In addition to the SBL values listed for Housing Status above, SBL values for the following are expanded to include new 2024-2025 ISIR values:

• A Student Marital Status values added:

  • SingleNeverMarried

  • MarriedNotSeparated

  • Remarried

• High School Type values added:

  • StateRecognizedHighSchoolEquivalent

  •  NoneOftheAbove

• Parent/Spouse information Type values added:

  • Parent

  • ParentSpouseOrPartner

 The updated SBL schema is available in the Customer Zone Knowledge Base at: Student Batch Load (SBL) - Customer Zone Knowledge Base.

Provisionally Independent Students (RS-20651)

An applicant will be treated as provisionally independent if they are otherwise dependent but report on the FAFSA or Access application that they do have unusual circumstances (such as abuse or abandonment) or if they select ‘yes’ for ‘Unaccompanied Homeless Youth, or is Unaccompanied, At Risk of Homelessness and Self Supporting’ (referred to as the ‘homelessness question’) and indicated ‘none of the above’ for the follow-on question about the entity that made the homelessness determination.

For a Regent Access application, the student is assigned a status of Provisional Independent (dependency status code 'Z') and a Provisional SAI is calculated. The calculation result is displayed as ‘Provisional SAI’ in the .pdf output and in the email to the applicant.  Access clients can review the dependencyStatusCode and dependencyStatus columns within the Export Access Database Extract File (CSV) to identify applicants with the dependency model of Z – Provisional Independent and implement their policies and procedures to determine if application corrections should be made to either make the student Independent (dependency override) or to update the determination field to reflect that the Financial Aid Administrator (FAA) has confirmed the homelessness status.  Conversely, if the applicant has not demonstrated eligibility for one of these paths to independence, they will be advised by the client to update their Access application as a dependent student providing parent information.

For Regent Award and Regent Review, a ‘Confirm Student Circumstances’ task will trigger when an ISIR is imported with a dependency model of Provisional Independent or if the student answered ‘yes’ for the ‘Homelessness question’ and ‘None of these Apply’ to the follow-up homelessness determination question. The FA Users will review follow-up documentation provided by applicants to determine whether a Dependency Override correction is appropriate to make the student Independent, or whether a student meets the ‘homelessness’ requirements and the FA User will update the ‘none of the above’ to ‘Financial Aid Administrator (FAA)’. Conversely, if the FA User determines the student does not meet eligibility requirements to forego providing parental information on the FAFSA, the applicant will be advised to make corrections to their application and see that the parental information is provided so processing can continue with a Dependent status.

When packaging a Provisionally Independent student, Regent Award will make Independent awards in Estimated status using the Provisional SAI. These awards will display in the Student Experience portal regardless of the setting for Estimated award display. Non-Title IV funds that are autopackaged and do not require an ISIR will be awarded in their configured ‘accepted’ or ‘offered’ fund status.  The Add Award Wizard (AAW) and Modify Award Wizard (MAW) have been updated to include use of a Provisional SAI.

Portal configuration Financial Aid Settings include the option for a Provisional Independent Status Message to display in the Financial Aid and My Documents components when a student is in Provisional Independent status or answered ‘none of the above’ to the follow-up questions after responding ‘yes’ to the ‘homelessness’ question. While Access client students will not have Financial Aid components in their portals, they will see the messaging in the My Documents component.

Update Fund Setup and MAP Estimated Awarding to Accommodate 2024-2025 ISIR Changes (RS-25620)

The Fund Eligibility section of Fund Setup was updated to reflect SAI. When ‘If no ISIR, allow awarding from Estimated SAI when available’ is selected, SAI will be used for the estimated packaging of students for 2024-2025 and future FAYs. EFC will continue to be used for 2023-2024 and prior FAYs.

Open

Within the Awarding Rules section of Fund Setup, the ‘Replaces EFC’ field was changed to ‘Non-Need-Based Fund used to Replace SAI’. If this field is checked in 2023-2024, current functionality will remain. If this field is checked for 2024-2025 and forward, Regent will reference SAI instead of EFC. The ‘Award Only if ISIR Interested in Work Study’ field’s help text was updated to reflect it is only functional for 2023-2024 and prior FAYs and does not apply to 2024-2025 and later.

Open

The Modify Academic Plan (MAP) process was also updated to reflect SAI.

Update Packaging Grids to Accommodate 2024-2025 ISIR Changes (RS-25619)

Packaging Grid Setup was updated to include ‘SAI’, allowing whole numbers greater than or equal to -1500 up to six numeric digits. If SAI is selected as the packaging grid row for 2024-2025 or future FAYs, the SAI from the ISIR will be used to package all funds associated to the Packaging Grid. If SAI is selected as the packaging grid row for 2023-2024 or prior FAYs, the EFC from the ISIR will be used to package all funds associated to the Packaging Grid.

Ranking and Priority Tool Updates for Regulatory (RS-26611)

 The Ranking and Priority Tool was updated to change ‘EFC’ to ‘SAI’. ‘FAFSA Completion Date’ was removed from the grid and replaced with ‘Application Receipt Date’. Regent is no longer supporting the old 'FAFSA Completion Date' within the tool. See Customer Zone Knowledge Base pageRegent Fund Ranking and Priority Tool for more information.

Implement Awarding with SAI and Pell Enrollment Intensity Percentage (RS-24840)

 Regent screens are updated to display the SAI or Provisional SAI where the EFC has been placed in previous years, but the Provisional SAI will not be included in the grid at the top of the Awards tab at this time.  Direct Costs now display on the Awards Tab above the Census COA row.  The FM EFC will now display in this section, relabeled as ‘SAI’.  Please note that for 2024-2025 and until further notice, the full FAY SAI will display and be used in calculations regardless of the length of the loan period.

 Packaging for need-based awards will use the full-year SAI regardless of the length of the packaging period.  If the full year SAI is 12,000, COA is $5000 per month and the period being packaged is only three months long, Regent will subtract the full (‘nine-month’) SAI of 12,000 from the three-month COA of $15,000 to result in $3000 need for the period. This functionality will remain in place until such time as statutes and their interpretation by the Department of Education allow us to resume use of alternate month indexes.  If the student’s SAI is negative (less than zero), zero will be used in the formulas to determine remaining unmet need.

 With 6.7, Regent Award will package and process 2024-2025 Pell Grant payment period amounts using Enrollment Intensity Percentage (EIP) instead of Enrollment Level as in previous FAYs. Calculation of Scheduled Pell amounts using Maximum Pell, Calculated Pell, or Minimum Pell was addressed in Release 6.6.  Students eligible for IASG or Children of Fallen Heroes (CFH) will now receive maximum Pell, although the rest of their awarding will be based on their calculated SAIs.

 Each payment period’s calculation will calculate the EIP dividing the number of units in the payment period by number of units required for full-time status, rounding to the nearest whole number and not exceeding 100%. For example, a student taking 10 credits when 12 credits is required for full-time status will have an EIP of 83% (rounded 83.33333) and if taking 15 credits, the 125% results is reduced to 100%. Nonterm and clock hour programs will always have an EIP of 100%. The full-time requirement uses the current Enrollment Level configuration for the program. Subscription period programming will use the EIP based on the program level configured for the student’s program. Pell using anticipated units uses the minimum number of units configured for the program's Anticipated Enrollment Level Type.

Next, Regent multiplies the Scheduled Pell by the EIP to arrive at the Annual Pell Award amount.  The payment period amount is then determined using the appropriate Pell Formula for the student’s program to the Annual award amount.  There are no changes in the Pell formula treatments. There are no changes to LEU. The only change for Year Round Pell is that that with implementation of the EIP there is no longer a requirement for At Least Half-Time status to receive Pell from the additional 50% Pell.

 Census Date, Multiple Census Date, and Pell Recalculation behavior is unchanged except that the census units are used to determine EIP rather than Enrollment Level.  Similarly, the treatment for using NSLDS data to determine aggregates and to support NSLDS Alerts required attention to behind the scenes mapping to the new ISIR fields, but the user experience and results should be unaffected.

 When awarding Pell across payment periods, if all payment periods are full-time (100% EIP), the traditional Up/Down/Up rounding is still in place.  In other cases, to align with ED examples, Regent has implemented standard rounding for payment period amounts.  (This usage has been confirmed with ED).

 The Academic Plan now has a field adjacent to the term-level Enrollment Level field in which to display the student’s EIP for the payment period as do wizards which include Enrollment Level.  EIP is not displayed on COD screens as of yet but will be added with implementation of the COD schema for 2024-2025 COD processing.

Update Pell ‘Disburse by Enrollment’ Option with Enrollment Intensity Percentage (EIP)(RS-26750)

 The current Pell ‘Disburse Based on Attended Census Enrollment Level' disbursement option schedules Pell disbursements incrementally throughout the term, processing a new disbursement each time the student attends enough additional units to reach a new enrollment level.  For 2024-2025, the same basic functionality will remain in place, but new disbursements are processed each time the student begins attendance in additional units thereby increasing the Pell EIP.

Upcoming 2024-2025 COD Upgrade to New 5.0b Schema

COD currently plans to upgrade to the new 5.0b schema on April 21, 2024.  Please be advised about the following during the short period before Regent’s aligning 6.7.2 upgrade will be released:

 Clients will continue to be able to process Pell and Direct Loan Common Record files originations and disbursements for 2023-2024.

 2024-2025 COD functionality will not be available in Regent until 6.7.2 is in place in Production, so no 2024-2025 origination or disbursement files will be created.

 FAY-specific reconciliation and rebuild files for 2023-2024 and prior years should continue to process successfully.  However, clients must ensure that no reconciliation, year-to-date or other rebuild files are requested for the 2024-2025 FAY until after the Regent upgrade.  A change in format for the 2024-2025 FAY could cause data issues should such a file be requested, generated, and imported prior to the Regent upgrade, although there is likely no such data available to be returned as yet.

Certain unsolicited COD files, such as those for promissory notes and entrance counseling will be created by COD in the new 5.0b schema and will not be supported within Regent during this period. Clients must store these files and not import them until the aligning Regent upgrade.

Ensure the ‘Transmit/Import Manually’ box IS checked for any of these files available in Processes SAIG Message Class Setup no later than April 21, 2024:

• CO -Credit Override 

• BN - Response - Booking Notification  

• EC - Response - Counseling Acknowledgement 

• ND - Response - Negative Disbursement 

• SP - Response - PLUS Application Acknowledgement  

• PN - Response - Promissory Note 

• SU - Response - SULA Acknowledgement

• AC - Response - TEACH Grant Counseling

• WB - Response - Web-Initiated 

• CS - Response- Credit Status 

• IB - Response- Informed Borrower

Upon upgrade to 6.7.2, clients should revert the unsolicited COD file Message Class setups as desired

Regent Access - Configurable Header Text for Student and Parent Portal Added (RS-22843)

New configuration options have been added to the Portal tab of Institution Setup in the ‘Portal and Questionnaire Display Settings’ section to allow users to enter text that will appear in the header of the Student Portal and/or Parent Portal, including the account registration pages.

New configuration fields include:

• Display Student Portal Header Text

• Student Portal Header Text

  • This is the editor where text can be entered for displaying in the header on the Student Portal, when the ‘Display Student Portal Header Text’ setting is enabled.

• Display Parent Portal Header Text

• Parent Portal Header Text

  • This is the editor where text can be entered for displaying in the header on the Student Portal, when the ‘Display Parent Portal Header Text’ setting is enabled.

The text color of the configured header message will be the Secondary Color configured for the portal, unless text is entered as HTML and color is specified within the code. Configured characters and line spaces should be minimized to avoid creating a header that obstructs view of other objects on the page.

For more information, please see Customer Zone Knowledge Base topics Student Experience Portal Data Elements .

Known Department of Education 2024-2025 FAFSA/ISIR Issues:

Review these links for information about Department of Education 2024-2025 FAFSA and ISIR issues and check Department of Education Knowledge Center for updates.

•  Technical FAQ and Known Issues: https://fsapartners.ed.gov/sites/default/files/2024-03/TechnicalFAQandKnownIssues.pdf

• FAFSA confirmed issues: 

  • 2024–25 FAFSA Issue Alerts | Knowledge Center

•  ISIR confirmed issues:

  • EA GEN-24-20 - Additional Details of 2024-25 ISIR Delivery

  • EA GEN-24-24 - Update on 2024-2025 ISIR Delivery

  • EA GEN-24-29 - Update on Tax Data Received from the FA-DDX and Manually Entered Information

• Some key items:

  • EA GEN-24-20 includes: The student’s Federal Pell Grant history, that is pulled from the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) and appears on the ISIR after processing, does not reflect the last three Pell Grant award sequences. However, Pell Lifetime Eligibility Used (LEU) and Unusual Enrollment History (UEH) flags are still triggering correctly on the ISIR, and schools should continue to review and resolve these flags to ensure students are packaged correctly. Schools should continue to utilize NSLDS online in general, and NSLDS Transfer Student Monitoring (TSM) to obtain the most current financial aid history for a student when needed.

  • EA-GEN-24-25 includes: The FAFSA Processing System (FPS) was not including all data fields needed to correctly calculate the Student Aid Index (SAI) for dependent students who reported assets. The FPS used the student’s Adjusted Net Worth of Businesses and Investment Farms to calculate the Student Contribution from Assets (ISIR field 328) and should have also included the student’s Current Net Worth of Investments and Total of Cash, Savings, and Checking Accounts. This resulted in an SAI that was lower than expected and an inaccurate total Student Contribution from Assets value. (ISIRs with incorrect SAIs will be reprocessed)

     

Known Issues for Regent 6.7