Overpayments and Return to Title IV
Federal financial aid (“Title IV funds”) is awarded to a student under the assumption that the student will attend school for the entire period for which the assistance is awarded. However, sometimes events occur that necessitate a course withdrawal.
Enrollment Freeze Date
Enrollment freeze refers to the practice of locking the units a student is enrolled in for purposes of financial aid award calculations. Once enrollment is frozen for a student, a student would not go into an overpayment status based on dropping classes (If it is determined that a student never attended the class, the student’s account would be corrected to reflect non-attendance and an overpayment could occur.). If a student drops/fails all courses a Return to Title IV Calculation will be completed (see R2T4 for more information).
BCC has three automatic enrollment freeze dates.
Freeze Date 1: Students enrolled full time for first nine week only courses will have their enrollment frozen at census for the first nine weeks.
Freeze Date 2: Students enrolled full time for full term courses or a combination of full term and first nine week only courses will have their enrollment frozen at census for the full term courses.
Freeze Date 3: All other students will have their enrollment frozen at census for the second nine week courses; this includes all students enrolled in only second nine weeks and any student who has not attained full time status at one of the previous enrollment freeze dates.
Students who do not plan to attend full time may request the enrollment to be frozen at either Freeze Date 1 or Freeze Date 2 by submitting the Enrollment Freeze Date form found online here by the deadline date published on the Disbursement Schedule for the semester of attendance. Once enrollment is frozen, future enrollment will not be considered for further award calculations so students should consider carefully before requesting to have their enrollment frozen early.
Overpayments
If a course withdrawal occurs before the enrollment freeze date or the withdrawal is a result of an instructor drop for nonattendance (registration status code of “NS” or “IW”) the student’s award is recalculated which may result in an overpayment of financial aid. If the student is not able to make payment in full by the due date, Financial Aid will notify Department of Education Debt Resolution Services and the student will be able to create a payment arrangement. It will take 4-6 weeks for DOE Debt Resolution Services to process the overpayment. Payment arrangements can be as low as 1% of the balance owed. Interest will accrue at a rate of 2¢ per day. While in overpayment status the student is ineligible to receive any federal financial aid funds from any institution. Once satisfactory payment arrangements have been established the student will regain eligibility. However, failure to make payments will result in loss of eligibility until the balance is paid in full.
Return to Title IV (R2T4)
Withdrawal Date
The withdrawal date is the date used by the Financial Aid Office to determine the point in time that the student is considered to have withdrawn so the percentage of the payment period or period of enrollment completed by the student can be determined. At the end of every grading period, instructors are required to submit the last date of attendance for both failing and no pass grades. In addition, attendance is verified for all online classes for failing grades and drops that occur after the enrollment freeze date based on the last date the student submitted work in the Canvas system. If, during the verification process, it is discovered a student never began attendance the student will be retroactively dropped and the student’s award will be recalculated. This recalculation may result in an overpayment. The last date of attendance is used as the withdrawal date during the R2T4 calculation process.
If the calculated withdrawal date occurs before the student completed 60% of the payment period, the percentage earned is equal to the percentage of the payment period or period of enrollment that was completed. If the day the student withdrew occurs after the student has completed 60% of the payment period or period of enrollment the percentage earned is 100%.
Process for Calculation of Amount of Title IV aid earned by student
Once a month (during the National Student Clearinghouse enrollment submission), students who have dropped all of their classes are reviewed. When a student withdraws or is instructor dropped from all classes after the enrollment freeze date, the student may no longer be eligible for the full amount of Title IV funds that the student was originally scheduled to receive. If the amount disbursed to the student is greater than the amount the student earned, unearned funds must be returned.
At the end of every grading period, students who have failed all classes and/or dropped all classes are reviewed. When a student withdraws or is instructor dropped from all classes after the enrollment freeze date, the student may no longer be eligible for the full amount of Title IV funds that the student was originally scheduled to receive. If the amount disbursed to the student is greater than the amount the student earned, unearned funds must be returned.
Post-Withdrawal Disbursement
If the student receives less Federal Student Aid than the amount earned, BCC offers a disbursement of the earned aid that was not received. This is called a post-withdrawal disbursement. BCC first obtains the student’s permission before Title IV grant funds from a post-withdrawal disbursement are credited to a student’s account to pay for tuition and fees for the term and then are disbursed directly to the student.
Title IV aid to be returned: BCC and student
If the student receives more Federal Student Aid than the amount earned BCC, the student, or both must return the unearned funds in a specified order as follows:
- Federal Pell Grants for which a return of funds is required.
- Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG) for which a return of funds is required.
When a Return of Title IV funds is due, BCC and the student may both have a responsibility for returning funds. Funds that are not the responsibility of BCC to return must be returned by the student. BCC exercises its option to collect from the student any funds BCC is obligated to return, and funds required for BCC to return will become a debt on the student’s account which the student will be responsible for paying. This charge is not reported to the Department of Education and simply remains as a debt on the student’s account with BCC.
Within 30 days of determining that a student who withdrew must repay all or part of a Title IV grant, BCC will notify the student that he or she must repay the overpayment. In its notification BCC will inform the student that the student owes an overpayment of Title IV funds that the student’s eligibility for additional Title IV funds will end if the student fails to pay BCC by the deadline in the notification sent by BCC to the student. The student’s overpayment must be reported to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) and referred to the Debt Resolution Services for collection. If payment is received after the overpayment is reported then a refund will be generated by the Business Office and funds will be returned to the student. The overpayment must be repaid to Department of Education once reported.
Students who owe money to the U.S. Department of Education are ineligible to receive federal financial aid from any college or institution until they clear that debt.
Students will become eligible for federal financial aid only after they have repaid the full amount or made arrangements directly with the U.S. Department of Education. BCC does not make repayment agreements directly with students.
Students who owe a repayment to the College (R2T4 Institutional) will be allowed to pay the college directly. Any outstanding debt will block a student’s ability to enroll in courses and the College sends any unpaid debt to collections.
Overpayments for Pell or SEOG will not be paid using Cal Grant funds.
