Financial Aid Withdrawal Policy
Official Withdrawal
Students initiate the drop process by completing an add/drop form on their student portal at my.rc.edu.
Students who fully drop from their courses and receive a 100% refund and it has been verified the student never began attendance in any of their courses, will have their aid fully reversed. The aid is returned to the appropriate programs. Traditional students have until the published census date (even if they had attended courses), and accelerated learning students have until the first day of their courses. For additional information on the traditional program policy, please see “Traditional students withdrawal/add/drop policy” later in this document. Traditional students have until census date to drop their courses, however, if they have begun attendance, a Return to Title IV (R2T4) process is still required to be completed and a student may be eligible for a post-withdrawal disbursement.
Rochester College is an institution that is “required to take attendance”. Therefore, students will be administratively dropped from their courses if they cease attendance in all of their courses within a 14 day period.
Students who fully withdraw (after the start of their courses for accelerated learning students and after census date for traditional students) will need to go through the R2T4 process. The process must be completed within 30 days of the date that the college determines the student withdrew, no later than 14 days after the student ceased attendance. Rochester College is required to take attendance by Department of Education definitions and therefore use the student’s last date of attendance (LDA) as the withdraw date for official and unofficial withdrawals.
Unofficial Withdrawals
Students who receive all W’s and/or F’s within a semester must be evaluated after each semester. SFS must evaluate if the student's financial aid file will need to be processed as a complete withdraw based on the last date of attendance of the W and F courses.
Order in which Title IV Program funds must be returned
When there is aid that is unearned, the order in which the funds are returned to the programs are as follows:
Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans
Federal Direct Subsidized Loans
Federal Perkins Loans
Federal Direct PLUS Loan
Federal Pell Grant
Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant
For these types of withdrawals, as with all other withdrawals, SFS will use the last date of attendance (LDA) based on the documentation from Academic Services and/or attendance records as the student’s withdrawal date.
If a student fails to begin attendance in the number of credit hours for which the Federal Pell Grant was awarded, the institution must recalculate the student’s eligibility for Pell and campus-based funds based on a revised cost of education and enrollment status (CFR 690.80(b)(2)(ii)).
Traditional students withdrawal/add/drop policy
Students may add or drop courses until the second Friday of each semester (census date), after which courses may not be added and withdrawals are noted as “W” on transcripts. Withdrawals are not allowed after the date published on the college calendar.
Financial Aid will be packaged based on original enrollment and will be re-evaluated after the second Friday of each semester. At that point financial aid based on enrollment hours will be locked in. If enrollment changes occur after this date, financial aid cannot be calculated for those enrollment hours.
Students will receive 100% refund on all course drops up until the second Friday of each semester (census date). After this date tuition will be refunded on a pro-rata basis.
Administrative Drops will be evaluated prior to the second Friday of each semester. Academic Services will drop students from any course in which they did not begin attendance by that date and financial aid will be re-evaluated.
Student are allowed to add a Session B course after census date, prior to the course start date, if it allows the student to continue in the block rate (12-18 credit hours). If they are below block rate (either initially or due to a withdraw) or if it takes them over the block rate, students will be required to pay out of pocket and will not be eligible for financial aid for the added course(s).
Withdraw in Modules
Students enrolled in a course(s) offered in a Session A and/or Session B in the accelerated learning program will be subject to additional governmental regulations with regards to withdrawing and dropping courses. If a student is enrolled in at least one “full semester” course, these regulations do not apply. Students must attend and “complete” all of the “scheduled days” in which the student was originally registered and enrolled for. Students are considered a complete withdrawal if they cease to attend their Session A courses within a 14 day period, unless, Rochester College has received, in writing, confirmation the student will continue to be enrolled and attend their Session B courses. If confirmation is not received by the student within 10 days of their last date of attendance in their Session A course(s), they will be considered to have completely withdrawn from Rochester College and both Session A and Session B course dates will be included as “scheduled days” when recalculating their financial aid eligibility. If a student requests to be dropped from their Session B courses while still attending their Session A courses, the Session B course dates will not be included as “scheduled days” when recalculating their financial aid eligibility.
Title IV funds are to be returned as soon as possible, however, no later than 45 days from the determination of the student’s withdrawal (no later then 14 days after the the student’s last date of attendance).
Post-Withdrawal Disbursements
The SFS adviser must obtain student or parent (for PLUS Loans) permission prior to loan disbursement. The student or parent may choose to decline some or all of the loan. To obtain permission to disburse the student or parent loan the SFS adviser will notify the student or parent in writing of the loan funds available. Notification must be made within 30 days of the date the school determined the student withdrew. The notice must include: source, type and amount of loan funds. The notice must advise that the student or parent may: reject, accept, or accept part of the funds offered as well as provide the information necessary for the student or parent to make an informed decision as to whether the student or parent should accept any disbursement of loan funds. The notice must include explanation of the obligation to repay the loan funds, whether they are used to pay the RC balance or are credited to the borrower. The notice must include RC’s intention to apply the loan funds to pay current charges. Should the student or parent not wish to have loan funds credited to their RC account, they are to be informed that they may decline the loan and RC must not make the post-withdrawal disbursement. The notice should include information about the advantages of keeping loan debt to a minimum. The notice will include a deadline of 14 days for response in order to receive the funds. Following the 14 day period, RC is not required to make the post-withdrawal disbursement (should the student or parent respond after the 14 days and RC declines to make the disbursement, written notification must be sent to the student or parent of the decision and the reason – should the college agree to the disbursement, notification is not required). The SFS adviser will not disburse any funds until the student or parent has confirmed the funds are wanted. Student and parent confirmation must be documented in the student file.
The post-withdrawal disbursement funds may be used to automatically pay tuition, fees and room and board charges.
The post-withdrawal disbursement funds may only be used for other school charges by permission from the student.
Determining Last Date of Attendance (LDA) or withdrawal date
To establish the withdrawal date for students who officially/unofficially withdraw, the Registrar’s office will use the last recorded date of class attendance by the student, as documented by the school. Documentation is provided by faculty members in Moodle and in the Institutional student database system. Attendance is based on the below policy.
Online Attendance Policy
In the online environment attendance equals participation. Attendance in an online class is defined as logging in and actively participating in the course. Active online participation includes "ice breaker" activities, submitting a test, quiz, paper, or assignment to the instructor, or participating in online discussion boards.
Fair and equitable refund policy of Rochester College
Rochester College has a fair and equitable refund policy. As required under Section 668.22 of the federal regulations, the Student Financial Services Office will calculate and provide for a refund based upon the percentage of aid earned during actual attendance.
All students who withdraw on or before the 60% point in time are subject to the pro rata refund requirements determined by the Department of Education related to the calendar start and end dates of the Rochester College academic year. Students who withdraw after the 60% point are subject to the withdraw calculation however are considered to have earned 100% of the financial aid earned for the tuition and fee charged for the scheduled days of attendance.