Y2K could hinder Financial aid dispersal

If the U.S. Department of Education does not accelerate its Year 2000 Compliance efforts, students may not receive their financial aid envelope in the mail on time for the 1999-2000 school year.

The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Investigations gave the department a grade of "F" for Y2K compliance in a recent report.

Committee Chair Peter Hoekstra (R-Holland) said the consequences will be severe if this federal department is unable to fix "mission critical" systems.

"If the systems are not up and working, for those young people expecting loans, there's no way to get them those loans," Hoekstra said. "The loan collection system could go down too and payments may get lost in a huge black hole."

Doug Levy, associate director of the University's Financial Aid Office, said that although the office is scheduled to be Year 2000 compliant by the middle of next month, its systems depend on working properly with the government.

"Any time we've had new initiatives with the Department of Education we've had growing pains," Levy said. "But we have a good presence in Washington. When things happen, we get responded to quickly."

Levy said that he does not expect the worst-case scenario to occur.

"I'm not sitting behind that desk in Washington, but from everything I've seen and how well designed federal aid software is, I don't see a complete collapse of the system as possible," Levy said.

Spokesperson Jim Bradshaw said the department "takes issue" with the committee's findings and said he expects financial aid requests for 2000 to be processed with no more flaws than usual. He said 86 percent of the department's computers already comply with Y2K standards.

"We're quite confident that by early next year we'll have all our systems year 2000 compliant and students will get their aid efficiently," Bradshaw said, adding that the committee may have overlooked the fact that many of their systems are in their final stage of Y2K testing.

Hoekstra said the committee will further assess the department's compliance efforts at a hearing tomorrow.

"Our intent is to highlight the problem and put as much pressure on the Education Department ... as possible," he said. "On some of this we won't actually know what will happen until the window opens.

"It's not a comfortable situation to be in," he said.

Pamela Fowler, director of the Office of Financial Aid, said if students do not receive their loans in time, there will be no need to panic in the short run.

"We will always let students register and always let them take classes," Fowler said. "The question is how long could we support students without money from the government. Frankly, we haven't talked about it."

Gloria Thiele, the University's Information Technology Division's year 2000 project coordinator, said there are four potential solutions to the problem.

"You can fix it, replace it, work around it or obsolete it," Thiele said. If the Education Committee is not able to comply on time, "there could be a work around."

It may be possible to reuse the financial aid formula from 1999, she said.

10-07-98