by Tina Falkner, Director of Student Finance, University of Minnesota
In their Monday session at AACRAO 2018, Purdue University representatives Lesa Beals and Joel Wenger shared a new collaborative initiative on their campus between the Office of the Registrar and the Financial Aid to ensure that the university no longer awards aid to undergraduate students who have completed program requirements but do not want to graduate.
Federal financial aid regulations state that students are no longer eligible for most forms of financial aid once they have completed their degree requirements. Students can continue to take courses and earn additional degrees, but need to pay out of their own pockets. Although that is what is legally supposed to happen, for various reasons, it often doesn't.
Why students linger
Academic advisers indicated several reasons why students may choose not to graduate. They found that a majority of students postponed graduating to pursue additional majors and/or minors, to participate in study abroad, to keep their loans from going into repayment, or because they didn't have a job lined up yet.
Although it is on a case-by-case basis, the campus position was that these students did not meet the federal requirement to receive aid and the degree should be awarded and aid should be ceased.
Changing business practices and policies
Purdue has implemented a business practice that will not allow students to add an additional program of study after a certain point in their last term. Several other campuses also noted that they also have policies or practices in place that prohibits students from adding programs (i.e., major or minors) in the last term of enrollment.
In addition, Purdue is investigating the possibility of graduating students even without them indicating that they want to have their degree awarded. Beals noted that before Purdue takes the initiative of ‘auto-award’ to faculty or administrative governance, they plan to use the data financial aid uncovers during their process of reviewing degree requirement completion for compliance. Beals also noted that they may learn that they have only a small number of students intentionally delaying graduation and the need for university policy may not be needed.
Getting the word out
The plan for financial aid and the office of the registrar to no longer award aid to students that have completed requirements will move forward fall 2018. Financial Aid and Registrar’s offices are working to help the advising community understand the federal financial aid regulations. They are also talking with academic advisers throughout the campus to prepare them for this change and understand how we can prepare students for the change as well.