Infograph made by Tori Lemon
Tori Lemon
Lantern Staff
Starting the fall semester of 2017, students who rely on financial aid will see revamped and more monitored regulations.
Those regulations have more thoroughly sorted through, and students will only receive federal financial aid for classes required for degree or certificate completion at that institution.
“While this is not a ‘new’ regulation, it has been difficult to previously manage this requirement due to being a manual process,” Director of Financial Aid Heather Ward said. “It has existed for many years. However, due to some constraints, we were unable to monitor this consistently on an individual student basis. Recent software upgrades by our vendor will soon allow us to follow this regulation in a more consistent manner.”
Apparently, there were some cohorts in which this was more closely monitored, but software integration will now allow us to closely monitor it for all students.
What does this ultimately mean for students? A student’s federal financial aid disbursement, most commonly Pell grant and loans, will be based on the number of credit hours in which the student is enrolled that only count towards their Butler degree or certificate completion requirements.
Say a student is enrolled in 15 credit hours, yet only 12 credit hours of his enrollment are required for his degree completion at Butler. The other three credit hours are for an elective class, or a course that the student has always taken a liking to- even with knowing the class is not required for one’s degree.
According to Ward, the student’s financial aid disbursement would see no changes because these 12 credit hours of required enrollment is still considered full-time status.
Now say another student is enrolled in 12 credit hours with only nine being required for a degree at Butler. Nine credit hours is considered three-fourths time status, that student’s federal financial aid disbursements would be adjusted. If a student is maximum Pell grant eligible, that could be a difference of $740 for the Fall 2017 semester.
Ultimately, each student will be affected differently by these regulations.
Scholarship students need not to worry, though. This regulation does not make any changes to institutional scholarship requirements or eligibility for those scholarships. In spite of that, there are times in which scholarship commitments may require students to enroll in specific courses during the semester. If these additional courses are not required for the degree completion at Butler, then those courses will not be included in the federal financial aid disbursement.
“If students want to ensure they are receiving the maximum federal financial aid eligibility for full-time enrollment, they will want to make sure at least 12 of their credit hours are required for their stated Butler degree or certificate,” Ward said.
Students are encouraged to remember that they are limited to the amount of federal financial aid they may receive over the period of a lifetime.
“A benefit of only receiving financial aid for classes required for degree completion, is that it may help students ensure they have enough financial aid to successfully meet their long term educational goals beyond Butler,” Ward said.
This regulation is in place for all schools participating in the Federal Financial Aid programs, which includes vocational schools, two year schools, as well as four year institutions. Institutions do not have an option as to whether or not they will comply to these new regulations.