How Financial Aid is Affected by Student Withdrawal

If you are planning to withdraw from a class or from the university completely, it can result in the return of your funds to the Department of Education or the removal of your institutional aid. It is always important for you to contact your financial aid advisor by email and double check before you make a decision so that we can make sure you understand how it will affect you financially.

If you are on financial aid warning or probation, dropping a class may result in suspension of financial aid for spring semester. Please check with the Financial Aid Office if you are on warning or probation.

Dropping or withdrawing from classes will affect your academic progress as an undergraduate or graduate student, and you will receive a W “grade” for each withdrawn class on your transcript. Getting too many W’s on your transcript could result in financial aid warning. Please work closely with your instructors to review all of your options.

Dropping below half-time enrollment (6 credits for undergraduates and 5 credit hours for graduate students) will make you ineligible for loans.

Dropping below full-time as an undergraduate (12 hours) will cause you to lose your merit and institutional aid.

If you drop or fail all of your classes this semester, you may be required to repay some of your financial aid.

If you need to withdraw in the middle of a semester due to extenuating circumstances, our office will determine how much financial aid you need to return and notify you by email. For Federal Pell grants, you may need to document that you participated academically in your classes. This may reduce how much money has to be returned.

Please note that withdrawing from classes will affect your satisfactory academic progress (SAP) towards graduation and you may be required to return some of your federal aid.