ED Issues Guidance on Returning Excess Interest
5/29/2017
The Department of Education has issued an electronic announcement (EA) providing instructions for institutions returning excess interest earned on Title IV dollars to the federal government.
ED's revised cash management rules, published in 2015, contain a provision that requires institutions to maintain Title IV funds in an interest-bearing account. Institutions may keep interest earned on these funds up to $500. Any amount earned over that threshold needs to be submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) no later than 30 days after the end of an award year.
Because this is the first award year since the new cash management regulations became effective, institutions will need to remit excess interest to HHS by July 30. At that point, ED will have deactivated the G5 process for remitting interest, so institutions must follow the instructions provided in the EA for submitting these payments. Those instructions detail how payments can be made and outline specific information that must be included with the remitted interest.
Payments can be made by ACH, FedWire, or by mailing a paper check. ED prefers the two electronic methods and notes that that the mailing address in the regulations is not the correct address. Instead, institutions that choose to mail in their payments should use the address included on the HHS website and referenced in the EA.
