The extent to which colleges are complying with the 1982-1983 Pell Grant validation requirements was assessed. Fall 1982 financial aid data were drawn from a representative sample of 3,490 Pell Grant recipients at 317 colleges that are part of the Regular Disbursement System. Key findings show: (1) the vast majority of institutions collect the required verifying documentations for their students who are "flagged" for validation by the U.S. Department of Education; (2) about 78 percent of the flagged recipients satisfied the validation requirements by providing a signed copy of their federal tax return or other verification; (3) the great majority of institutions appeared to be identifying incorrect application entries in the cases of recipients flagged for validation; (4) for most of the documented cases, the application item discrepancies were small; (5) about 2 percent of the documented flagged cases had out-of-tolerance differences that would lead to a change in the student's expected award; and (6) about 6 percent of the documented flagged cases had differences within tolerance that would lead to a payment change. Appended are study findings and information on the sampling methodology. (SW)