[caption id=”attachment_85094″ align=”aligncenter” width=”2731″] AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
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Cheyney University in Pennsylvania reportedly mismanaged $30 million in federal financial aid.
A report released Thursday by the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education revealed that errors were found in about 85 percent of the 4,400 financial aid records reviewed between 2011 and 2014.
The university was not maintaining the required documentation to show the aid had been spent appropriately, and had not provided documentation since 2010-11, a spokesman from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
The State System hired independent firm Financial Aid Services (FAS) last year to conduct the audit.
According to the report, Cheyney could not provide high school transcripts for almost half of the students who received financial aid during the three-year period. The university also could not document whether some of the students receiving aid were making the required academic progress toward earning a degree.
“It appears as if a large percentage of students who received grants and loans were not eligible or should not have received the level of funding that they did,” Kenn Marshall, system spokesman, told the Inquirer.
The report was turned over to the U.S. Department of Education which will decide how much the school owes and how it will be paid back, according to State System Chancellor Frank Brogan.
Cheyney’s Interim President Frank Pogue issued a statement on Thursday afternoon stating that current administrative staff would be working to resolve the issue.
“Key administrative workers who were involved in processing financial aid in the award years in question, 2011-2014, are no longer employed at Cheyney University,” Pogue said.
Cheyney is one of 14 state-run universities in Pennsylvania, and the nation’s oldest historically black university. Declining enrollment and state funding has left the university on the brink of financial collapse for the past few years. In 2014-2015 just 1,022 students were enrolled at Cheyney.
