Cheyney University's Financial Woes Getting Worse
By Paul Kurtz
CHEYNEY, Pa. (CBS) - Financially beleaguered Cheyney University is facing another crisis.
The school may owe the US Department of Education more than $29-million due to mismanagement of financial aid funds for students.
The troubling findings are in a report the Pa. System of Higher Education has submitted to the DOE based on an investigation conducted by an outside firm.
"They reviewed more than 4,000 records of students who've received financial aid and they discovered a significant amount of errors in those records," says system spokesman Kenn Marshall. "Nearly 85-percent error rate."
The outside firm, Financial Aid Services of Atlanta, is now operating the financial aid office at Cheyney and Marshall says the situation has improved:
"The first year that FAS took over the error rate was reduced to 1.6-percent, which is certainly a much more acceptable rate."
The feds will conduct its own investigation and determine how much Cheney will have to return.
Interim President Frank Pogue has released a statement saying the University has made numerous corrections.
Cheyney has been hobbled by a $30-million budget deficit and drooping enrollment.
