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I was wondering if....

anyone out there had a great internal audit mechanism that works for their school. One that would edit all areas of school operation? Admissions, academics, financial aid, and placement???

Yes. I created an internal audit program for my company that covered all of these areas. I feel it is very comprehensive, including a requirement that the individual schools respond to my findings and/or concerns. When I was creating this program, I trained with a CPA firm that does compliance audits for Title IV and I trained with a former employee of our accrediting agency.

Great idea, Barbara.

I think regularly auditing student's files is the best mechanism.
Admissions: completed on time, not missing anything.
Financial Aid: disbursed on time, refunded on time.
Academics: Progress made no probations.
Placement: verification of employment.
Randomly picked files will show clearly if any department is not in compliance.

Agreed, Anna! And, ideally, part of that "regular audit" is actually part of the routine cross checking that happens as a file is processed throughout the student's life cycle. Often the cross departmental nature of activities that occur in supporting the student enables mechanisms to ensure that files are complete and accurate.

Streamlined operations; infrastructure that controls information flow, too many times student information can be introduced into the system from multiple points, causing confusion. The administrator of drops, graduation or whatever should come from one point of contact, the director.

Robin - I agree that it must be controlled but, depending on size, this may be the registrar or some academic officer. Additionally, along with limiting control, it's important to have a "back up" plan of someone who can perform the duty when the primary is unavailable for planned or unexpected reasons.

We do not have an internal audior. However, we use "check offs" to ensure that documentation is processed and in file. We engage a SFA processor to assist with compliance in Financial aid. The 'check offs are periodically audited by the registrars dept to find problems. So far its been working pretty well.

Regardless of if an institution has internal auditors, I think the check lists are important and that anytime there are hand offs between departments, they do some sort of review. For example, when registrars get files from admissions, they can verify completeness/accuracy. When FA is processing, the can validate that the academic related information is in alignment for their packaging, etc.

Anna, I think this system that you have; keeps it simple and right to the point. Using all four as internal audits quaterly, is something that im going to implement at the end of this month. Thank you for sharing.

It is true that every department is separate, but at the same time depends on the other. When every department receive files from the previous one, using the checklist, can confirm that the necessary documents were received. That help to minimize compliance.

For Placement Audits, I noticed that some folks have listed that they perform employment verification on their grads. Who, with your company, performs these verifications? DOE, compliance coordinator, career services?
Secondly, how often are you doing these verifications? We need to put something solid in place and suggestions are highly appreciated!

Mary,
We'll see what others have to say but, in my experience, I have seen a variety of different ways to handle placement verification. At a minimum, it should be someone other than the representative handling the initial confirmation. Some states even have specific requirements for verifications including additional checkpoints after certain time frames to validate the placement "counting". Schools that have an internal audit, compliance, or quality control department have tasked these areas with such verifications, some schools have outsourced this to external companies that specialize in such services, and some handle it within the career services area or in partnership with another department for cross check. Hopefully, we will see some "best practices" from other schools to help give you ideas!

Traci Lee

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