<p>I have an important question about the 180 credit hour ceiling (a typical ceiling for universities, it looks like).</p>
<p>I am in a very unusual situation. Thanks to a great dual high school-college program in Kentucky (Gatton Academy), I came into college (Purdue University) officially with 74 credit hours. Then, I had to withdraw a semester for medical reasons, and since I’m recovering passing a few classes is looking iffy. The result is that I will exceed the 180 credit hour limit by some 10-15 credit hours at this rate. This will cause some serious student aid issues.</p>
<p>I’ve talked with the department of financial aid at Purdue and with my advisor, and there does seem to be an appeal process for exceeding the 180 hour limit with government granted loans. However, I haven’t yet started the appeal process and want to know my options in case something about the process goes wrong. </p>
<p>2) Let’s say college credits from high school do count against me, but that this is a common problem. Does anyone know whether this problem has been solved before?</p>
<p>3) Worst case scenario: my appeal doesn’t work. Are there other student loan options which don’t care about the 180 hour limit? Even if the interest rates are higher…in this worst case scenario, is finishing college feasible.</p>
<p>You should have withdrawn those useless credits from high school, but it may be too late now. This is a more common practice for schools that charge higher tuition rate for upperclassmen.</p>
<p>You may want to find out if the financial aid disqualification would occur in the semester you reach 180 credits attempted, or only after you reach 180 credits attempted. E.g. if you have 179 credits attempted, then take a 15 credit semester, does the financial aid disqualification apply to that semester, or the one after? If the disqualification only occurs afterward, then you may be able to stay eligible for financial aid up to 179 plus whatever credits you can take in one more semester, which may be enough if you only need 190 to 195 credits.</p>
<p>In Texas, we have the 150 hour limit, meaning you can’t go 30 hours over your degree plan without being charged out-of-state tuition. I know for a fact from legal documentation that any credits earned while in high-school (in Texas) DO NOT count toward your 150 hour limit. You might want to search around online for legal information similar to that.</p>
<p>You might find it in some state legislature websites like credit-limits and whatnot since there probably is precedence for this, especially when dual-enrollment is being more and more common among students, you’re guaranteed to hit this situation a lot more than just once every million years.</p>
<p>+! @thumper1 If those credits were obtained prior to earning your HS diploma, they most likely will not count against your credits-attempted limit.</p>
<p>Re: post 5…that was my thought…and something the student needs to explore. Is it 180 TOTAL credit hours including HS dual enrolled courses…or is it 180 hours take after HS graduation?</p>
<p>OP, The policy for not considering HS graduates as college transfers so they can get freshman scholarships has no bearing on your case (your question #1). If you are using your HS credits to fulfill some of your college hourly requirements then I can see Purdue’s point. You may have to ask to have some of your HS earned credits removed.</p>
<p>Some of the credits did apply to my degree. The ones that did fulfilled nearly all my math and science requirements as well as gen eds, but the vast majority didn’t do anything since they were fulfilling high school requirements.</p>
<p>I will be starting an appeal process next semester. My original plan was to ask for the credit hour ceiling to be raised. But many of you raised a good point saying striking off credit hours is somewhat common. Thank you. </p>
<p>If I had known what I know now I wouldn’t be in this mess, but hindsight is always 20/20.</p>
<p>My D’s college adviser actually sent out a couple messages in the past month reminding freshmen to drop the AP credits they don’t need by last week as they may need to pay upperclassmen tuition much earlier otherwise.</p>
<p>I never heard of this. Is this typically done by colleges with AP credits? Does this have to do with scholarship money or federal financial aid?</p>
<p>Many state universities have some sort of credits earned or attempted limit, so that students don’t hang around forever (particularly at in-state subsidized tuition). Policies on AP or other credit earned before high school graduation vary.</p>
<p>But the OP should check when the financial aid disqualification occurs, as described in reply #3. I.e. check whether it is possible to get to 179 credits, then take one last semester of 11 to 16 credits to finish while still receiving financial aid.</p>