[OACRAO] Follow-up Question to the Withdrawal Policy Email: How Does that Impatc Financial Aid/Tuition Refund Policy?

[Alex Siebert]

Colleagues,


I've seen some responses that I didn't expect to the original question that Capital University put out there of, "...how many days into the semester your institution begins recording a “Withdrawal” grade for a full semester course?", how do some of these policies impact a student's financial aid and their tuition bill?


I'm curious to also learn about some of your other policies as they might relate to the one above.

  1.  What is your tuition refund policy?
  2.  How does that relate to your course withdrawal policy in determining whether to record a "W" or no grade at all?
  3.  If you don't record a grade, and/or it does not show on a transcript, how do you track whether or not a student paid, or overpaid their tuition in a given semester when you review them later in an internal review or audit?

Currently, our course withdrawal policy is closely aligned with our tuition refund policy. In the first week of a full semester (sticking with our fall/spring traditional semesters--not summer or other shortened sessions), a student is able to get a 100% refund of their tuition back from a resulting drop in credit hours. So if a student paid $12,000 for 12 credits, but then dropped down to 9 credits in the first week, they would get $3,000 back. In week 2, it's 75% refund, week 3 is 50%, 4 is 25%, then no refund after that.

In that first week, we will also remove the class from their schedule and transcript entirely, and send back all financial aid money that is dependent on enrollment level (I think PELL money is directly tied to enrollment level).

Anytime after the first week, we feel that we must record a grade, as we do not refund their full tuition amount back, and we feel we need to record that on a transcript with a "W" for when we are asked about it later to create a papertrail and explain the resulting odd tuition bill. Also, financial aid must calculate a return of funds, based on when the student withdrew. If a student is able to switch classes, and keep the same enrollment level, we will not record a grade, so that their transcript would not show that they attempted maybe 24 credits, receiving a "W" in half of them (if a student had to completely alter every class in the semester in the first week of classes).

I apologize if this is a bit long-winded--I'm very curious to know if your schools handle this differently, and why. I know that my co-workers and I have debated over some of these policies, specifically the course withdrawal one, rather recently.

Thank you!


Alex Siebert
Director of Registrar Services
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