The Annual Consumer and Financial Aid Disclosure was recently made available to the public.

The recent disclosure provides information on the latest crime and safety statistics, athletic participation rates, student outcomes and financial support.

“The annual consumer [and] financial aid disclosure contains a variety of information,” Brittany Hubbard, director of Financial Aid and interim Registrar, said. “It includes information on financial aid, facilities, faculty, crime reports, accreditation, academic ethics, federal drug laws pertaining to receipt of financial aid, emergency preparedness and much more.”

The disclosure is sent via e-mail to all students every semester.

The information is also available on the IU Southeast website. It can be found by accessing the “A-Z List of Webpages.”

The disclosure helps improve the transparency for the public. Schools and other institutions that receive federal funds are required by federal law to provide certain information.

“[The disclosure] helps support and maintain the public’s right to access information and to know what policies affect them,” Seuth Chaleunphonh, dean of students and director of Campus Life, said.

There are no privacy issues since the disclosures do not contain data on individual students.

“Normally, we just give the reports as an aggregate, which just means they’re grouped,” Chaleunphonh said, “and so it protects the identity of certain people.”

Different areas of the schools put together the information for the disclosure. For example, the IUS Police Department creates the crime statistics.

“Each school does it differently, but our university and [other] IU campuses put them all in one place,” Chaleunphonh said. “Some of those areas are overseen by Financial Aid. Others are overseen by other areas.”

One of the areas in the report involves information on drug and alcohol use.

“We have to notify students about regulations and expectations of alcohol and other illegal substances – what the community regional laws are, what the penalties are on campus, what the health risks are and so on,” Chaleunphonh said.

The Student Right-to-Know Act states that institutions receiving Title IV funding need to provide information on completion and graduation rates to all students and prospective students.

“The Student Right-to-Know Act information is included in the annual disclosure,” Hubbard said.

There were no significant changes in this year’s disclosure in comparison to last year’s.

By JENNIFER HARRINGTON

Staff

jeharrin@umail.iu.edu