The FSA Partner and School Relations Center will allow for Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) school testing for the 2026–27 award year from Jan. 12, 2026, through Dec. 11, 2026.
The purpose of COD school testing is to provide organizations (schools, third-party servicers, and software providers) with an opportunity to test Federal Pell Grant (Pell Grant), Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant, and William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) business processes and system software with the COD System prior to the transmission and processing of actual production data using COD Common Record XML Schema Version 5.0d. It also allows schools, third-party servicers, and software providers to make corrections or enhancements to software applications and processes prior to sending data to the “live” production environment.
All organizations that wish to participate in COD school testing must submit the “COD School Testing 2026–27 Sign-Up Document” to the FSA Partner and School Relations Center.
Complete testing information will be available in the School Testing Guide (Volume 5 of the 2026–27 COD Technical Reference) that we will post on the Knowledge Center by late January 2026. In this announcement, we provide useful high-level information about COD school testing for the 2026–27 award year.
