Attendance
The ED requires that schools are able to document that students are actually in attendance to finalize their Title IV financial aid. For example, if a student doesn’t begin attendance in all of his or her classes, the school must recalculate the student’s award based on the lower enrollment status. A student is considered to have begun attendance in all of his or her classes if the student attends at least one day of class for each course in which that student’s enrollment status was determined for Federal Pell Grant eligibility. In a distance education context, documenting that a student has logged into an online class is not sufficient, by itself, to demonstrate academic attendance by the student. A school must demonstrate that a student participated in class or was otherwise engaged in an academically related activity, such as by contributing to an online discussion or initiating contact with a faculty member to ask a course-related question. Del Mar College documents attendance for Title IV recipients by collecting on-line rosters from all instructors after census date. The instructors use the rosters to indicate whether a student has attended or not. Students must attend each class that they are enrolled in at least once between the first day of school and the census day of each term to be counted as being in attendance in that class for Federal Pell Grant eligibility purposes. In cases where students do not attend class at least once, Federal Pell Grant eligibility will be adjusted based on the enrollment status for the number of credits that they are actually attending, and other Title IV may be cancelled. If this adjustment results in a student not having sufficient grant funds to pay for any charges or advances that they have incurred or received, that student will be responsible to pay Del Mar College for the difference between their adjusted eligibility and the original amount of the cost of their tuition and fees as well as any advances that the student received.