To assure that your Scholarship and Grant Program Rules remain current, please record this document on your TOPS Bulletin index and retain it with your manual.

This bulletin explains the justification for and describes the changes being made to the file layout of the TOPS Institutional Payment Request (IPIR) file.

Because students enrolled in non-academic programs may use summer sessions to meet certain continuation standards for the TOPS award, it is necessary that the student’s program of study (i.e., academic or non-academic) be identified prior to the end of each academic reporting period.

To acquire students’ program of study within the time line required, the IPIR file is being amended.  In addition to adding the program of study, blank fields have been included in the file layout to minimize file revisions in the event new data must be added at a later date.

Beginning with the first semester of academic year 2004-05 (1S/IT2005), the IPIR will be expanded by adding six (6) fields.  The revised IPIR file layout must be implemented by institutions beginning September 3, 2004, and will be used for all payment requests submitted after that date, to include payments requested for prior academic years.

The file layout and an explanation of the added fields and codes are as follows:

Program Type - A or T (Required field – One character, alphanumeric entry)
Implementation – September 3, 2004

A – TOPS Opportunity, Performance or Honors students enrolled in an academic program of study at a 2-year and 4-year public or LAICU institution.

T – TOPS Tech, as well as recipients of the Opportunity, Performance or Honors award, who are enrolled at campuses of the Louisiana Technical College or pursuing an eligible skill or occupational training program at a public or LAICU institution.

The A/T program codes will remain on the student’s academic information file and should mirror the code used in the billing file for the same student/same semester.

Special Students (Optional field – two character, alphanumeric entry)
Implementation - pending

This field is currently identified as the Academic Standing (AS) field on the TOPS academic information report (Term Grade File), but is used to transmit information relative to billing concerns.  This move will allow schools to utilize one program rather than two when requesting payments for these special populations.  These entries include Term to Semester (TS), Semester to Term (ST), National Guard (NG), removed from National Guard (GN), Eligible Part Time (EP), Study Abroad (EX), Over Award (OA), Dual Billed (DB), Graduate Program (GP) and Professional School (PS).

Schools will be notified when this field is activated.  Until such time, institutions should continue to utilize the AS field on the TOPS academic information file.

Four (4) additional fields are being added and will be reserved for future use.  Each should be alphanumeric entries with six (6) characters allowed for each field.  LOSFA is requesting that schools adapt their billing files to accommodate these new fields for implementation at a later date.

The TOPS portal will reflect the new field effective September 3, 2004.

TOPS PAYMENT REQUEST – DATA DESCRIPTION 03/30/04