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Unofficial Withdrawals (Failing All Classes in a Semester)

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Federal guidelines require APUS to review the grades for all students who complete their semester.  The institution must not only check students for Satisfactory Academic Progress in their program of study but must also have a mechanism in place to determine if a student failed to complete any courses in a semester.

Students who failed at least one course in a semester and have drops or withdrawals as the remainder of their grades is considered to have not passed any courses within the semester.  These students are considered as ‘unofficial withdrawals’ and are no longer considered as enrolled at the institution and are subject to Federal Return of Federal Financial Aid Funds rules.  The only exception to this rule occurs if the student has future registrations in their next semester.

The following procedures are followed:  Approximately 21 to 24 days after the end of a semester (to allow for initial grade posting and any grade revisions due to student appeal) a report is run to determine those students who failed to pass any courses in their semester.  This report will identify any students who meet the involuntary withdrawal criteria. Once identified, the institution will follow all procedures listed in the Return of Federal Financial Aid Funds after disenrollment section.

Effective Tuesday, October 23, 2007 the university changed its policy regarding how students will be calculated for earned and unearned Federal Student Aid when they involuntarily withdraw from the institution.  A student is considered an involuntary withdrawal from the university when at the end of a semester the student has failed to pass any of their courses from that semester, has at least one failing grade and the student is not registered for future classes.  In this situation where a student has involuntarily withdrawn and they received Federal Student Aid for the semester, the university is required by law to perform a Return of Federal Financial Aid calculation to determine the percentage and amount of aid that the student earned for the semester.

Prior to the above date the institution chose to use a straightforward 50% earned policy allowed in the Federal Regulations.  Effective October 23, the policy will be as follows:

For students identified as having not passed any of their courses in a semester, the institution will determine the last date that they participated in an academically-related activity (such as entering the classroom, participating in a discussion group, taking an exam, turning in homework, etc.)  Once the last date of an academically-related activity has been determined, the Financial Aid Office will determine if the mid-point date will be used for the calculation or if the date is after the midpoint of the semester, then the last attendance date will be used for the calculation.  This date will be considered as their Withdrawal Date for the purposes of determining the percentage of the payment period that a student was actively participating over the whole semester and subsequently the amount of unearned Federal Financial Aid that must be returned to the Federal Government. The institution will review each student on the All Fail report on a case-by-case basis.