Number of Colleges under Heightened Cash Monitoring Increases

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The Department of Education has placed 540 colleges and universities under financial restrictions as of December 2015. The number of schools on Heightened Cash Monitoring increased from 499 in September 2015. List of Colleges and Universitites

The U.S. Department of Education may place institutions on a Heightened Cash Monitoring (HCM) payment method to ensure additional oversight of cash management for a number of financial or federal compliance issues, some of which may be serious while others may be less troublesome.

The majority of schools on the list, 454, are on Heightened Cash Monitoring 1 (HCM1), which is generally for less serious offensives such as missing or late financial statements or failure to meet the Department of Education’s financial responsibility score requirements. Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 (HCM2) is for more serious offensives such as concerns about a school’s financial responsibility, or possibly severe findings uncovered during a program review. 86 colleges and universities were on the HCM2 list.

Please see HEAG’s blog post Heightened Cash Monitoring for more information on how schools are placed on the HCM1 and HCM2 lists and what schools can do to get off the lists.

HEAG assists schools with compliance coordination needed to meet the requirements of HCM1 and HCM2. Common services HEAG provides to schools placed on HCM are:

  • Verification, file review and awarding
  • HCM2 spreadsheet preparation and submission
  • Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) processing and reporting
  • Policy and procedure development, implementation and assessment
  • Audit/program review preparation, support and response

To find out more information about composite scores and other required financial standards, refer to the Financial Standards chapter of the Federal Student Aid Handbook.