Dropping Courses vs. Withdrawing

Your official Chattahoochee Tech enrollment status for financial aid eligibility determination is based on the number of hours in which you are officially registered at the end of (Drop/Add) Registration.

Dropping a class(s) prior to the last date of the official Drop/Add period at the beginning of a term will result in a review of your financial aid eligibility for that term. Credit hours for dropped courses are not included in determining your enrollment status for financial aid purposes. Neither do they count for HOPE eligibility determination purposes nor are they included in determining your Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP). No courses or grades are posted to your academic transcript for dropped hours. Tuition and related fee charges for the dropped course(s) are returned to the appropriate financial aid program. Repayment will be required if financial aid was previously disbursed to you based on the subsequently dropped credit hours.

Conversely, hours from which you withdraw or are withdrawn will be considered as enrolled and attempted hours for purposes of determining federal aid and HOPE eligibility and will be included in both the quantitative and qualitative portions of the SAP standards.

In addition, if you withdraw (or are withdrawn) from all your courses prior to completing more than 60 percent of the term, federal regulations will generally require you to repay a portion of the federal student aid received during the term. The amount of any required aid repayment is calculated by the Financial Aid Office according to a federally prescribed formula (R2T4).

Refund Process for Students Receiving Federal Title IV Financial Aid (R2T4)

(Federal Pell Grant and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant)

The US Department of Education specifies how Chattahoochee Technical College (Chattahoochee Tech) must determine the amount of Title IV program assistance that you earn if you withdraw from school or stop attending all of your courses for a term. The Title IV programs that are covered by this law are: Federal Pell Grants, and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOGs).

When you withdraw or stop attending all courses during your period of enrollment (term in which you are registered), the amount of Title IV program assistance that you have earned up to that point is determined by a specific formula. If you received (or Chattahoochee Tech received on your behalf) less assistance than the amount that you earned, you may be able to receive those additional funds. If you received more assistance than you earned, the excess funds must be returned by the school and/or you.

If you did not receive all of the funds that you earned, you may be due a post-withdrawal disbursement. Chattahoochee Tech will automatically use all or a portion of your post-withdrawal disbursement of grant funds for tuition and fees. The school needs your permission to use the post-withdrawal grant disbursement for all other school charges (fees not automatically paid with financial aid funds). If you do not give your permission, you will be offered the funds. However, it may be in your best interest to allow Chattahoochee Tech to utilize the funds to reduce your debt at the school. There may be some Title IV funds that you were scheduled to receive that cannot be disbursed to you once you withdraw or stop attending because of other eligibility requirements.

If you (or Chattahoochee Tech on your behalf) receive excess Title IV program funds that must be returned, your school must return a portion of the excess equal to the lesser of:

• your institutional charges multiplied by the unearned percentage of your funds, or
• the entire amount of excess funds.

Chattahoochee Tech must return this amount even if it didn’t keep this amount of your Title IV program funds. Chattahoochee Tech will then charge you for the Title IV program funds that the school was required to return. If Chattahoochee Tech is not required to return all of the excess funds, you must return the remaining amount.

Any amount of unearned grant funds that you must return is called an overpayment. The maximum amount of a grant overpayment that you must repay is half of the grant funds you received or were scheduled to receive. You must make arrangements with Chattahoochee Tech or the Department of Education to return the unearned grant funds.

The requirements for Title IV program funds when you withdraw or stop attending all courses for a term are separate from the Institutional Policy [see Refund Policy (Institutional) section]. Therefore, you may still owe funds to the school to cover unpaid institutional charges. Chattahoochee Tech will charge you for any Title IV program funds that the school was required to return.

If you have questions about your Title IV program funds, please contact the financial aid office. You may also contact the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4-FEDAID (1-800-433-3243). TTY users may call 1-800-730-8913.