Enrollment in all previous terms, including those in which you withdrew completely from classes, determines whether or not you receive your financial aid. Make sure you’re doing all the right things so you don’t lose any funding, and be aware of what happens if you need to repeat a course.
Don't put your financial aid in jeopardy
Maintain required enrollment status
If you are an undergraduate or graduate student, you must be enrolled at least half time during any semester in which you receive financial aid:
- Undergraduate half time: six credit hours
- Graduate half time: four credit hours
Some grants require that you maintain full-time status. In those cases, you must be enrolled in at least:
- Undergraduate full time: twelve credit hours
- Graduate full time: eight credit hours
Any change to your enrollment may result in a change to your financial aid eligibility. This includes:
- Decreases in enrolled credit hours
- Nonattendance in a class or unofficial withdrawal
- Official withdrawal
If any of these occur, you may be asked to return money you’ve already received, and may not receive money you’re expecting.
Make satisfactory academic progress
We review your academic progress at least once a year. It’s determined by your enrollment in all previous terms (including those in which you withdrew completely from classes), whether or not you received financial aid.
You must meet the following requirements to make satisfactory academic progress:
You must maintain a cumulative program GPA of no less than the graduation requirements for your academic program.
- Undergraduates: 2.0
- Education: 2.7
- Social Work: 2.5
- Graduate: 3.0
In order to make satisfactory academic progress, you have to successfully complete no less than 67 percent of your total attempted courses. If you received a grade of W, F, FX, or I in a course, you did not successfully complete that course.
Transfer, Tested, ACP credit hours are calculated as hours successfully attempted and completed.
You must complete your degree within 150% of the published credit hour length of your academic program (typically this is 180 attempted credit hours). Once you have attempted 160 credit hours, you will need to complete a satisfactory academic progress appeal to help outline your plans for graduation to make sure you’re completing your degree requirements before you reach the 150% limit.
Please note that you may only receive financial aid for courses which satisfy degree objectives and requirements.
We’ll notify you if you’re making unsatisfactory academic progress. You can also check One.IU to see your status.
How repeating a course may affect your financial aid
If you receive less than an A in a course, you may be eligible to retake the course through IU’s Extended-X policy. However, federal regulations say that repeated courses can’t be included in your enrollment status when we calculate your federal financial aid eligibility in some cases.
If either of the below applies to you, your Title IV Federal Aid eligibility will be affected—including Pell Grants and Federal Direct Loans. If you’re receiving Title IV aid, we’ll let you know if you’re enrolled in non-repeatable coursework during a term.
A repeated course's credit hours will not count towards your enrollment status with regards to financial aid eligibility.
For example, if you're taking 12 credit hours, but one of your courses (let's say a 3 credit hour course) is being repeated, only 9 of your credit hours will count towards your enrollment. This will put you at less than full-time status, which will generally reduce the federal grant and loan amounts, or possibly disqualify you from certain grants, for which you are eligible.
Let’s say you enroll in four related classes in the fall and pass only three of them. Your department requires you to take all four courses at the same time, so you have to retake all four in the spring. Only the class you failed would be included in your enrollment status, which means your enrollment would be reported as less than half time. This would cause your Federal Pell Grant to be recalculated and any Federal Direct Loans to be cancelled for the term.
What happens to you financial aid if you withdraw or cease to attend class
In accordance with federal regulations, students who withdraw from the university before the end of the semester may be required to repay federal or state financial aid funds received for use during that semester. The amount of the repayment depends upon the point in the semester at which the student withdraws. Students who cease to attend but fail to withdraw may also be subject to repayment of financial aid. Contact the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships for further information.
Official Withdrawals
If you decide to leave Indiana University East, you must follow the official withdrawal process. If some problem prevents you from withdrawing in person, you should contact the Office of the Registrar for procedures to withdraw by phone.
Unofficial Withdrawals
If you simply cease to attend your classes but do not officially withdraw, you will be considered to have "unofficially withdrawn" for financial aid purposes. The date used to determine your financial aid eligibility amount "earned" will be on a case by case basis after review. Students who unofficially withdraw may be billed in accordance with federal regulations despite the fact that an "F" grade will appear on your transcript.