Determining Your Earned / Unearned Financial Aid

Withdrawing from one or more of your classes can affect your financial aid depending on your last date of attendance for each class being withdrawn.

If you withdraw from class before the financial aid lock date, your Financial Aid Award may be adjusted. Your Financial Aid Award is based on the number of credit hours you are enrolled in.

After the refund period, you will be responsible to pay tuition and fees for classes you have not dropped on My Hawkeye > My WebAdvisor (SOAR) > Registration > Register and Drop Sections. Not attending a class will not drop you from a class.

Hawkeye and State of Iowa Financial Aid

Once you have attended class past the financial aid lock date, you are considered to have earned 100% of your Hawkeye and State of Iowa financial aid.

Hawkeye financial aid programs include:

• Achievement Scholarship
• Board of Trustees Scholarship
• Hawkeye Scholarships
• McElroy Loan

State of Iowa financial aid programs include:

• All Iowa Opportunity Foster Care Grant and Education and Training Voucher Program
• All Iowa Opportunity Scholarship
• Iowa Grants
• Iowa National Guard
• Iowa Vocational Technical Grants

Federal Title IV Funds Financial Aid

The term of “Title IV Funds” refers to the federal financial aid programs authorized under the Higher Education Act of 1965 (as amended) and includes the following programs:

• Federal Direct Stafford Parent (PLUS) Loan
• Federal Direct Stafford Subsidized and Unsubsidized Loans
• Federal Pell Grant
• Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant (FSEOG)

Until you have passed the 60% point in the semester, only a portion of your disbursed Title IV Funds have been earned.

After you have reached the 60% point in the semester you have earned 100% of your Title IV Funds financial aid.

If you completely withdraw, are expelled, stop attending all your classes, or withdraw from a late start class during a period of enrollment for which you have received Title IV Funds, the Financial Aid office will determine how much, if any, of your Title IV funds must be returned based on a federally mandated refund formula. The Hawkeye Administrative software performs the calculations. The software can be reviewed upon request to the Financial Aid office.

Returning Unearned Title IV Funds

In accordance with federal regulations when Title IV Funds are involved, unearned aid is returned by Hawkeye in the following order:

1. Federal Direct Stafford Unsubsidized Loans
2. Federal Direct Stafford Subsidized Loans
3. Federal Direct Stafford Parent (PLUS) Loans
4. Federal Pell grants
5. Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant (FSEOG)
6. Other Title IV assistance

It is your responsibility to return unearned Title IV Funds that were disbursed directly to you.

Unearned Title IV Fund loan proceeds paid directly to you must be repaid under the terms and conditions of the promissory note.

Unearned Title IV Fund grant proceeds paid directly to you must be returned by you to the Department of Education.

• The amount of grant proceeds you must repay is limited to the amount by which the grant overpayment exceeds half of the original grant funds.

• An overpayment of $50 or less does not have to be repaid.

• You must make arrangements with the Business Services office or the Department of Education to return such grant proceeds within 14 days of the date of notice of overpayment.

• You will be reported to the National Student Loan Data System (NSLDS) if you do not to make repayment arrangements within 14 days of the date of the notice of overpayment. This will result in the loss of any further financial aid eligibility.

Calculating Your Earned Title IV Funds

Example Calculation for illustration purposes only
The following is an example of a return of funds for a student who totally withdrew from classes on day 42 of a 102 day semester. This student would have earned 41.2% of their Title IV Funds for the semester (42/102 = 41.2%). The remaining amount would have to be returned to the appropriate source.

Refunds

In the event that you have received less aid than the amount of financial aid that you have earned at the time of withdrawal, you are eligible to receive those funds.

Hawkeye will notify you of your eligibility of a post-withdrawal disbursement of aid. You will have 14 days to accept or decline these funds.

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