Return of Federal Student Aid

Regulations require that the Financial Aid Office recalculates federal aid eligibility for a student who withdraws, drops or otherwise stops attending prior to the end of a term. This is called the Federal Return to Title IV Calculation. Title IV is the regulation under which federal student aid programs are administered.

Title IV aid includes: 

• Pell Grant 
• Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grant
• SEOG Grant
• TEACH Grant
• Perkins Loan  
• Direct (subsidized and unsubsidized) loans 
• Direct PLUS and Grad PLUS loans

The recalculation of federal student aid is based on the percent of aid earned using the following formula: the number of days completed up to the withdrawal date (determined by the Financial Aid Office), divided by the total days in the term.

Federal financial aid is returned based on the percentage of unearned aid using the following formula: 100%, minus the percent of aid earned, multiplied by the amount of aid disbursed for the term. Students who complete at least 60 percent of the term are eligible to keep 100 percent of their federal aid for that term.

Funds that could not have been disbursed at the time of withdrawal cannot be used as part of the calculation. This may include cases where master promissory note, loan entrance counseling, verification or other documents were not complete at the time of the withdrawal.

For loans not disbursed at the time of withdrawal, the student (or the parent-borrower of a Parent PLUS loan) must notify the Financial Aid Office in writing if they wish to accept the post-withdrawal disbursement of any loan funds. Students have 21 days from the date of the notice to accept a post-withdrawal disbursement of their loans.