For the first time in my college career, I find myself in a position of having to use a selective withdrawal allowance. I contacted the financial aid office, but I am still confused. The last day to do the withdrawal is Oct. 27. The date on which your obligation is considered “fulfilled” by the government occurs a few days later. On my school’s website, it says “100% liability,” but I have read that the government gives you credit for time registered in the class up until the drop date?? So if I wait until the very last day to drop shouldn’t my liability only be for the few days between when I dropped and the day of fulfillment? And then my question is, how quickly do I need to pay back that difference? Thanks for clearing up my confusion. Honestly I wish I could just drop it now instead of waiting until the 27th because I am in extreme distress over the class but I need to minimize the financial consequences.
Are you talking about meeting SAP? Or are you talking about how much you might need to pay back to the school?
In terms of SAP…if you drop these courses, they will count as incompleted courses. Period.
For money purposes…talk to financial aid BEFORE you drop any courses.
I’m not worried about meeting SAP. I have a 3.9 gpa so even with the lost hours factored in I will be averaged to meet requirements. I only need to drop one course. I am confused about how much I will have to pay back to the school: the 3 days worth or the entire course? And when I will have to pay. I already spoke with the financial aid office and I am still confused.
If you are confused, do NOTHING until you understand your financial situation, how many semesters you have left before finishing your degree (not just the number of credits required, but are you fulfilling your distribution requirements and major requirements as well). There are thousands of students every year who owe money for courses they didn’t complete, and run out of financial aid entirely before getting close to a degree. And some of them have high GPA’s too. A high GPA doesn’t help you if you can’t afford to finish college with a degree.
Go back to financial aid and sit down with a financial aid officer until you DO understand.
100% liability most likely refers to the fact that you will not receive any tuition refund when you drop the class. If the financial aid point at which you have earned 100% of your aid occurs after the drop date, the school is required to perform a return to Title IV calculation to determine how much of your federal aid you have “earned” to the point in time when you drop the class. My guess is that you would owe something, since it’s not the 100% mark - any unearned aid has to be returned to the government (the school will do it & charge you). As @blossom suggests, you need to talk with a financial aid officer to find out the financial impact of dropping the class. There are some schools that will remove their own institutional aid if you drop below a certain number of credits - so you need to look at more than just the impact on federal aid.