FEDERAL RETURN TO TITLE IV REQUIREMENT

Percentage of payment period or period of enrollment completed Once a student’s withdrawal date is determined, a school needs to calculate the percentage of the payment period or period of enrollment that was completed. The percentage of the payment period or period of enrollment completed represents the percentage of aid earned by the student. This percentage is determined differently for students who withdraw from credit-hour programs and students who withdraw from clock-hour programs. Scheduled breaks

For credit hour programs, institutionally scheduled breaks of five or more consecutive days are excluded from the R2T4 calculation as periods of nonattendance and, therefore, do not affect the calculation of the amount of Title IV aid earned. If a scheduled break occurs prior to a student’s withdrawal, all days between the last scheduled day of classes before a scheduled break and the first day classes resume are excluded from both the numerator and denominator in calculating the percentage of the term completed. If the withdrawal occurs prior to a scheduled break, the days in the break are excluded only from the denominator. Percentage o f payment period or period o f enrollment completed 34 CFR 668.22(f) If a student officially withdraws while on a scheduled break of less than five days, the date of the student’s notification to the institution is the student’s withdrawal date. (Withdrawing during a scheduled break of less than five days does not affect the date the school uses as the date of withdrawal in an R2T4 calculation.) The beginning date of a scheduled break is defined by the school’s calendar for the student’s program.

In a program where classes only meet on Saturday and/or Sunday, if a scheduled break starts on Monday and ends on Friday, the five weekdays between the weekend classes do not count as a scheduled break because the break does not include any days on which classes are scheduled. Therefore, the five days would not be excluded from the numerator or denominator in Step 2 of an R2T4 calculation. Determining the length of a scheduled break 1. Determine the last day that class is held before a scheduled break—the next day is the first day of the scheduled break. 2. The last day of the scheduled break is the day before the next class is held. Where classes end on a Friday and do not resume until Monday following a one-week break, both weekends (four days) and the five weekdays would be excluded from the R2T4 calculation, for a total of nine days. (The first Saturday, the day after the last class, is the first day of the break. The following Sunday, the day before classes resume, is the last day of the break.) If classes were taught on either weekend, those days would be included rather than excluded and would not be part of the scheduled break. For example, if a community college offers regular classes on Saturday and Sunday and its academic calendar says that a scheduled break starts on a Monday and resumes with classes the following Monday, that break is seven days long. Scheduled breaks 34 CFR 668.22(f)(2)(i) and (ii)(B) Example of withdrawal date when a student withdraws during a scheduled break of five or more days If a student officially withdraws while on a scheduled break of five consecutive days or more, the withdrawal date is the last date of scheduled class attendance prior to the start of the scheduled break. For example, the institution’s last date of scheduled class attendance prior to spring break is Friday, March 7. Spring break at the institution runs from Saturday, March 8, to Sunday, March 16. If the student contacts the institution’s designated office on Wednesday, March 12, to inform the institution that they will not be returning from the institution’s spring break, the student’s withdrawal date is Friday, March 7, which was the institution’s last day of scheduled class attendance. However, the date of the institution’s determination that the student withdrew is March 12, the date the student actually informed the institution that they would not be returning. The date of the institution’s determination that the student withdrew is used as the starting date for institutional action, such as providing student notifications and returning Title IV funds.

Institutionally scheduled breaks of at least five consecutive days Credit-hour programs For a credit-hour program, the percentage of the period completed is determined by dividing the number of calendar days completed in the payment period or period of enrollment, as of the day the student withdrew, by the total number of calendar days in the same period. The number of calendar days in the numerator or denominator includes all days within the period, except for institutionally scheduled breaks of five or more consecutive days or days in which the student was on an approved leave of absence. The day the student withdrew is counted as a completed day. If the student is enrolled in a Institutionally scheduled breaks of at least five consecutive days between courses/ modules in the same payment period or period of enrollment are excluded from an R2T4 calculation. If a student takes an “unscheduled break in attendance,” thereby deviating from the student’s original attendance plan, the school either must treat the student as a withdrawal or place the student on an “approved leave of absence” as described under Breaks in attendance for students enrolled in programs measured in credit hours without academic terms, in Chapter 1. The length of a payment period can never be less than the originally scheduled length. If a student is progressing more rapidly than originally planned and the required projection calculation results in an end date that creates a shorter payment period, the school must use the original “end date” in the R2T4 calculation. Temporary closures beyond the control of the institution A school that temporarily closes due to weather, natural disaster, or other event outside the control of the institution should promptly contact its School Participation Division to discuss its situation. The Department will work with the school to review the effects of the temporary interruption and the impact of the temporary closure. You can find the Department’s most recent disaster guidance on the Knowledge Center under the Dear Colleague Letter GEN-17-08. Please note: the Department has provided specific guidance on the COVID-19 national emergency that may differ from the guidance in Dear Colleague Letter GEN-17-08. Refer to the resources for higher education institutions on the Department's webpage on the COVID-19 virus for guidance pertaining to that national emergency.

Credit -hour programs 34 CFR 668.22(f)(1)(i) program offered in modules, please review the earlier section entitled Determining the number of days a student is scheduled to complete in modules. Percentage of Title IV aid earned for withdrawal from a nonterm credit-hour program In a nonterm credit-hour program, the ending date for a period and, therefore, the total number of calendar days in the period, may depend on the pace at which an individual student progresses through the program. Therefore, for a student who withdraws from a nonterm credit-hour program in which the completion date of the period depends on an individual student’s progress, an institution must project the completion date based on the student’s progress as of their withdrawal date to determine the total number of calendar days in the period. (See the examples that follow.) If a student withdraws from a self-paced, nonterm credit-hour program before earning any credits, the institution must have a reasonable procedure for projecting the completion date of the period. To the extent that any measure of progress is available, the institution should base its determination on that progress (see examples 2 and 3 following this section).

For a school that offers nonterm credit-hour programs in which the student does not earn credits or complete lessons as they progress through the program, the institution must have a reasonable procedure for projecting the completion date of the period based on the student’s progress before withdrawal. If the total number of calendar days in the period does not depend on the pace at which a student progresses through a program (the completion date is the same for all students) and the student has not failed any courses for which they were paid in the payment period, the total number of calendar days in the period will be the same for all students. Consider a nonterm credit-hour program where some or all of the courses are offered sequentially and all students begin and end the courses at the same time. For a student who successfully completed all courses attempted up to the time the student withdrew, the completion date (and the corresponding number of days in the R2T4 calculation) will be the number of days between the start of the first course and the originally scheduled end of the last course.

Clock-hour programs Only scheduled hours are used to determine the percentage of the period completed by a student withdrawing from a clock-hour program. For a clock-hour program, the percentage of the period completed is determined by dividing the number of hours the student was scheduled to complete in the payment period or period of enrollment, as of the day the student withdrew, by the total number of clock hours in the same period as follows: A student withdrawing from a clock-hour program earns 100% of their aid if the student’s withdrawal date occurs after the point that they were scheduled to complete more than 60% of the scheduled hours in the payment period or period of enrollment. The scheduled clock hours used for a student must be those established by the school prior to the student’s beginning class date for the payment period or period of enrollment, and the hours must have been established in accordance with any requirements of the state or the institution’s accrediting agency. These hours must be consistent with the published materials describing the institution’s programs. However, if an institution modified the scheduled hours in a student’s program prior to and unrelated to their withdrawal in accordance with any state or accrediting agency requirements, the new scheduled hours may be used. Please note that a school does NOT count scheduled hours during periods when a student is on a leave of absence or “make-up” hours that were not part of the student’s normal schedule. When a student who received a loan with an abbreviated loan period withdraws As described in Chapter 1 under Loan principles applicable to re-entry in and transfer to clock-hour programs, non-term credit hour programs, and nonstandard term credit-hour programs with terms that are not substantially equal when a student transfers to a new school and enters that type of program, and an overlap exists between academic years of the two schools, the new school may originate a loan for the remaining portion of the prior school’s academic year. The abbreviated loan period—the shortened initial loan period at the new school—ends on the calendar end date of the prior school’s academic year without regard to the weeks of instructional time and credit- or clock-hours completed. (Note that the amount of the loan for the abbreviated loan period may not exceed the remaining balance of the student’s annual loan limit at the grade level applicable at the new school, and the borrower is not eligible for a new annual loan limit until the original academic year has ended.)

If a student who has received a loan for an abbreviated period withdraws, there are special considerations for the student’s R2T4 calculation. When an R2T4 calculation is performed on a payment period basis, the definition of a payment period in 34 CFR 668.4 is Clock -hour programs 34 CFR 668.22(f)(1)(ii) used. Those regulations define a payment period for clock-hour programs and nonterm credit hour programs as the time it takes a student to complete half the hours and the weeks of instructional time in the program or the defined academic year, whichever is shorter. An abbreviated loan period designed to complete a prior school’s academic year does not meet the definition of a payment period and should not be used as a payment period for purposes of the R2T4 calculation. When determining what aid to include in Step 1 of an R2T4 calculation for a student who withdraws from a payment period or period of enrollment that includes an abbreviated loan period, a school follows the rules for Step 1 in R2T4 calculations described earlier in this chapter under Student’s Title IV aid information, Title IV aid disbursed, and Title IV aid that could have been disbursed. In addition, when the loan period for a student does not correspond with the payment period used in the R2T4 calculation, as defined in 34 CFR 668.4, the school must prorate the net loan funds to determine the amount that should be attributed to the payment period from which the student withdrew. If a student with an abbreviated loan period was enrolled in a nonterm credit-hour program in which the completion date of the period depends on an individual student’s progress, when performing the proration to determine the amount of loan funds to include in Step 1 of the R2T4 calculation, an institution may either use the original payment period and loan period end dates, or may project the end dates of the payment period and loan period based on the student’s progress as of their withdrawal date using the same procedure as it uses to project the student’s payment period completion date when it is determining the number of days in the payment period in Step 2 of the R2T4 calculation (see Percentage of Title IV aid earned for withdrawal from a credit-hour nonterm program). An institution also has the discretion to use the original payment period and loan period end dates or to project those end dates when performing this proration for a student who has withdrawn from a clock hour program. An institution must be consistent in its use of original end dates or projected end dates.

View the entire FSA Handbook and Return to Title IV information here. (pdf)