Refunds & Federal Compliance
Refund Policies
Please contact the Business Office concerning current tuition/fee policies and examples.
Return of Title IV Policy (Federal Aid Programs)
Federal Title IV funds are awarded to a student under the assumption that the student will attend school for the entire period for which aid is awarded. Students receiving federal financial aid who withdraw or stop attending may be required to return a portion of financial aid awarded. Once notified of a total withdrawal, the institution is required to apply a federally mandated formula to determine how much of the federal funding was “earned” by the student. This review and recalculation is called a “Return of Title IV Aid Calculation (R2T4 Calculation).”
Student Financial Aid and Withdrawing from Classes
Withdrawing, officially or unofficially, may result in a recalculation of your financial aid for the semester. The exact consequences to you depend on several factors, including the type and amount of aid and your last date of attendance. The consequences for each of these academic actions are different and are addressed in this policy.
Official Withdrawals
Students can drop full-term courses without record the first fourteen days of a semester. Flex courses may be dropped without record during the first week of the course. After that time, to officially withdraw from courses, a student must contact their academic advisor. A student may withdraw from full-term courses and receive a grade of W until the first day of the fifteenth week of the semester or, for the summer semester, end of the sixth week. A student’s withdrawal date is determined as the student’s last day of attendance.
Unofficial Withdrawals
If a student stops attending a course but does not officially withdraw (as outlined above), then a student’s instructor will assign a grade for that course that will remain on the student’s official permanent record. If a student simply stops attending classes rather than officially withdrawing through their academic advisor, they will be subject to the same financial aid consequences addressed below. The withdrawal date for unofficial withdraws is the student’s last day of attendance.
Return of Title IV Funds Process for Federal Aid
The federal government mandates that students who withdraw from all classes may keep only aid earned up to the withdrawal date. For official and unofficial withdraws, the Financial Aid Office uses the student’s last date of attendance in its Return of Title IV calculation. If a student is eligible for federal Title IV aid and fails to attend at least 60% of a semester, the Financial Aid Office must determine how much of the student’s aid, if any, must be returned to the federal aid programs based on the percent of the semester attended. Once a student attends 60% of the term, they are considered to have earned 100% of awarded federal aid. The semester length is defined as the first day of classes through the last day of the semester.
When a student is considered to have withdrawn during an enrollment period in which they have begun attendance and received federal Title IV financial aid, Belmont College is required to determine the amount of earned and unearned Title IV aid. A student is only eligible to retain the percentage of Title IV aid disbursed that is equal to the percentage of the enrollment period that was attended by the student.
The unearned Title IV aid must then be returned to the appropriate federal aid program(s) as soon as possible but no later than 45 days after the date of the determination of a student’s withdrawal.
The federal regulations determine the order of program funds are returned. Funds returned to the federal government are used to reimburse individual federal programs. Financial aid funds are returned in the following order up to the calculated unearned amount:
- Federal Unsubsidized Direct Loan,
- Federal Subsidized Direct Loan
- Federal Direct PLUS (Parent) Loan
- Federal Pell Grant
- Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG)
If it is determined that a student received unearned funds, the return of this overpayment may result in a balance due to the Business Office. If the R2T4 calculation results in an amount to be returned, Belmont College will return the amount to the federal programs on behalf of the student and the student must repay the funds to Belmont College.
Post-Withdrawal Disbursement:
If it is determined that the student earned more federal funds than what has been disbursed at the time the student withdraws, the student may be issued a post-withdrawal disbursement. All post-withdrawal disbursements are applied to a student’s account first towards outstanding tuition, fees, and charges.
Federal grant funds determined for a post-withdrawal disbursement must be disbursed within 45 days. If the post-withdrawal disbursement includes direct loan funds, they will be offered to the student within 30 days. Belmont College must obtain student permission within 14 days in order to disburse the loan funds to the student. The student may choose to decline some or all the loan funds. If the R2T4 calculation results in a credit balance on the student’s account, the credit balance will be disbursed as soon as possible but no later than 14 days after the calculation of R2T4.