New Page 1

Title IV funds are federal financial aid programs. They include the Pell grant, SEOG grant, ACG grant, Smart grant, Perkins loans, PLUS loans and Stafford student loan programs.

Why do I have to pay back some of my financial aid if I withdraw from all of my courses?

The government awards you financial aid with the assumption that you will satisfactorily complete the courses for which you are enrolled.If you withdraw from all of your courses, you are no longer considered a student, and the government expects both you and the college to return some of the money that was received.

Why don't I have to pay back financial aid if I withdraw from only some of my classes and not all of them?

As long as you are still attending at least one class, you are still considered a student and are eligible for financial aid for the term. Although you may not have to pay back any of the financial aid you received, the courses from which you withdraw will count against your completion rate and can impact your financial aid eligibility in the future.

In the Return of Title IV funds policy, what is the difference between an official withdrawal and an unofficial withdrawal?

A student has officially withdrawn when they withdraw from their courses through the Registrars office prior to the end of the withdrawal period. A student has unofficially withdrawn when they stop attending their courses without withdrawing from the course(s) or fail to earn a passing grade in at least one class.

In the Return of Title IV funds calculation, how do you determine what date to use as my last date of attendance?

Your last date of attendance is the date that you officially withdrew from your last class for the term, or in cases of unofficial withdrawals, the last date that faculty can document that you were in class, handed in an assignment, took a test or interacted on-line.

In the Return of Title IV funds policy, why do I pay back the college rather than the department of education?

There are two types of calculations made under the Return of Title IV funds policy: The first determines the amount of financial aid that the college must reimburse from your student account to the department of education. The second determines how much you must return of the excess funding you received after your UTPA charges were paid. As the college must return funds from your student account, you directly owe the college the amount that was returned. UTPA also pays the amount that the government says you owe from the excess funding you had received. By doing so, you owe payments only to UTPA rather than both UTPA and the Department of Education.