Awarding Pell Grants for the 2009 and Prior Aid Years
This section provides an overview of Pell Grant awarding for the 2009 and prior aid years and discusses how to:
Define Pell eligibility calculation setup.
Calculate Pell Grants.
Reinstate a cancelled Pell Grant award.
Award Pell Grants for post-baccalaureate teaching certificate candidates.
This section discusses Pell Grant Awarding for the 2009 and prior aid years.
Note: Beginning with the 2010 aid year, the system calculates Pell Grant differently. This section discusses awarding Pell Grants for the 2009 and prior aid years. For information on awarding Pell Grants for 2010 and future aid years:
See Awarding Pell Grants for the 2010 and Future Aid Years.
The Pell Grant awarding functionality automatically calculates students' Pell Grant awards based on their primary EFC, Pell COA, Pell COA for less than half-time (Pell LTHT), and enrollment (FA Load or Current Load). The system calculates the Pell Grant for each term, then sums each term's amount to give an annual Pell Grant award amount. As part of your setup, you can choose to use full-time enrollment, part-time enrollment, the student's actual FA Load value, or the student's Current Load value (which takes into account current and completed Open Entry/Open Exit session) as the enrollment value. You can also choose to calculate the student's Pell Grant eligibility using a different default enrollment value at different points in the term: before the term's start date, on or after the term's start date but before the financial aid census date, and on or after the financial aid census date.
When entering a Pell Grant manually on the Student Aid Package page, you can leave the award amount at zero. When you click the Validation button, the system automatically calculates the Pell Grant award according to the Pell eligibility calculation defined in your setup.
You must complete the Pell eligibility calculation (PEC) setup for your Pell Grants to be properly calculated. The PEC setup involves defining the default enrollment value to use when calculating the student's Pell eligibility: before the term's start date, on or after the term's start date but before the financial aid census date, and on or after the financial aid census date. Having different default enrollment values for these three points in time gives you flexibility in projecting and awarding Pell Grants. You can calculate a student's Pell Grant using a projected enrollment value for the period prior to the term start date, such as full time or half-time. Then when the student's term begins, you can recalculate the student's Pell Grant award using the student's actual enrollment (FA Load or Current Load). The Financial Aid Term build process determines the student's FA Load using the units in the FA Taken field. The FA Load field is one of the fields you can lock using census-date locking. Current Load calculates the student's enrollment load using the units from sessions the student is currently enrolled in as well as sessions within the term that the student has already completed. This field enables you to calculate the enrollment load of Open Entry/Open Exit students more accurately. Finally, if you use census-date locking, you may want to use the census date locked value (FA Load) for any Pell recalculations that occur after the financial aid census date.
Note: If a term does not have a financial aid census date established, the Pell recalculation process uses the academic census date (defined in PeopleSoft Student Records).
The fields that define your PEC setup are the Academic Base Weeks, Non-Standard Base Weeks, Pell Calculation Start, Pell Calculation Midterm, Pell Calculation Census, and Pell Number of Terms fields.
Financial Aid Defaults Page
First, you must establish your PEC setup on the Financial Aid Defaults page. Because the values you enter on this page are used as installation level defaults, the values you enter on this page should be the values you want to use for most (or all as appropriate) of your undergraduate programs. For the Academic Base Weeks and Non-Standard Base Weeks fields, enter the information that represents the standard weeks of instruction for terms in the Academic Award Period (AAP) and Non-Standard Award Period (NSAP), respectively. In the Pell Number of Terms field, enter the number of terms in the academic year—2 for semesters, 3 for trimesters/quarters. This value equals the number of terms in the AAP, but depends upon your institution's academic program business processes. The Packaging routine uses the Pell number of terms to split the Pell Grant evenly among terms when you choose either Full Time or Half Time for a Pell calculation field.
In the Pell Calculation Start field, enter Full Time, Half Time, Current Load, or FA Load. Entering Full Time or Half Time projects the student's enrollment as either full-time or half-time prior to the student's term start date. If you enter Enrollment Current Load or Enrollment FA Load, the Pell calculation uses actual enrollment information.
In the Pell Calculation Midterm field, enter Enrollment Current Load or Enrollment FA Load to use the student's actual enrollment information or enter Full Time or Half Time to project the students' financial aid load. If your students are enrolled in Open Entry/Open Exit sessions or your institution supports dynamic dating using Student Records, use Enrollment Current Load because this field value gives a precise picture of the student's academic progress through multiple sessions in a term.
In the Pell Calculation Census field, select Enrollment FA Load. This field value directs the Pell calculation to use the financial aid load calculated on or after the census date.
Careers That Vary from Installation Level Defaults
For careers that require a different PEC setup than specified on the Financial Aid Defaults page, create an aid processing rule set with the required PEC setup for those careers. You create aid processing rule sets on the Aid Processing Rule Setup page; the fields for PEC setup on this page correspond to those on the Financial Aid Defaults page. Then you assign aid processing rule sets on the Valid Careers for Aid Year page to only those careers that need a PEC setup that differs from the installation level default. If two careers require the same PEC setup (which differs from the installation level default setup), create only one aid processing rule set and assign it to both careers.
Note: You do not need to create an aid processing rule set for every career. You do not need to assign an aid processing rule set to every career on the Valid Careers for Aid Year page. If you do not specify an aid processing rule set on the Valid Careers for Aid Year page, the Packaging routine uses the installation defaults for PEC.
For example, you may want to create an aid processing rule set for a career that has academic program weeks of instruction greater or less than the standard weeks of instruction at the installation default level. On the Aid Processing Rule Setup page, you would specify the values for the weeks of instruction in the Academic Base Weeks and Non-Standard Base Weeks fields for these careers. Fill out all fields in the aid processing rule set.
See Creating Aid Processing Rule Sets.
Academic Programs That Vary from Career Level Defaults
For academic programs that require a different PEC setup than specified at the career or installation level, create an aid processing rule set with the required PEC setup. Then you assign aid processing rule sets to only those academic programs that require a PEC setup different from the career or installation level default on the Valid Programs for Aid Year page. If two academic programs require the same PEC setup, create only one aid processing rule set and assign it to both academic programs.
For programs, the Pell number of terms that you enter on the Aid Processing Rule Setup page must match the Pell number of terms at the career level.
Note: You do not need to create an aid processing rule set for every career/program combination. You do not need to enter every program on the Valid Programs for Aid Year page. If you do not specify an aid processing rule set on the Valid Programs for Aid Year page, the Packaging routine uses the career or installation level defaults for PEC.
Individual Students Requiring Overrides to Default Values
Access a student's Pell Calculation Eligibility Student Override page and click on the Pell Calculation Override link after querying a student.
|
Field or Control |
Definition |
|---|---|
| Status |
Select Active to override the PEC setup at the FA installation, career, or program level. The override applies to all terms and all Pell Grant awards across award periods. Select Inactive to use the PEC setup at FA installation, career, or program level. The other fields for PEC setup on this page correspond to those on the Financial Aid Defaults page |
Note: For a complete description of the PEC Student Override page:
When the Packaging routine calculates the student's Pell Grant (whether you are packaging the student using Manual Packaging, Auto Packaging, or Mass Packaging), it first determines the PEC setup values to use. Because PEC setup defaults can be at the program, career, or installation level, the Packaging routine checks for defaults in the following order to ensure that the proper aid processing rules are used:
Aid processing rule set associated with the student's program.
Aid processing rule set associated with the student's career.
Installation defaults specified on the Financial Aid Defaults page.
Note: If the student has override values, those values take precedence over all other default values.
After determining the correct PEC values to use, the Packaging routine compares the current (system) date against the term start date (earliest session start date) and the financial aid census date. After the Packaging routine identifies the current date in relation to these dates, it calculates the student's Pell Grant term by term using the enrollment specified in the appropriate Pell calculation field (Pell Calculation Start, Pell Calculation Midterm, or Pell Calculation Census). Using the Pell COA, Pell LTHT or alternate Pell COA, appropriate weeks of instruction, the student's nine-month EFC, and the appropriate Pell Grant disbursement Schedule based on the enrollment value, the routine determines the term Pell Grant amount for the student.
The Packaging routine repeats this process for each term in the student's academic program, and adds the individual term amounts to determine the student's annual Pell award. For the Enrollment Current Load and Enrollment FA Load values, the routine disregards the split codes assigned to the Pell Grant financial aid item type and returns a split code of XX to indicate a custom split. For the Full Time and Half Time values, the routine derives a per term award amount by determining the annual Pell award using the appropriate Pell Grant disbursement schedule and dividing that amount by the Pell Number of Terms value.
Example
A student attends a semester-based institution, and is an undergraduate in the liberal arts academic program. Neither the student's program nor career have defaults that differ from the installation defaults. The student's annual Pell COA is 5,450.00 and the primary EFC is 154.00. According to the Federal Pell Grant Schedule, the student receives an annual award of 3,150.00 if enrolled full-time, an annual award of 2,363.00 if enrolled three-quarter time, and an annual award of 1,575.00 if enrolled half-time.
The student is first awarded a Pell Grant on March 1, 2000. To calculate the student's Pell Grant amount, the Packaging routine first determines whether PEC setup values exist at the student override level and then the academic program level for the student. After the routine determines that no aid processing rule set is attached to the liberal arts academic program, it checks for career level defaults. Because no aid processing rule set is assigned to the undergraduate career, it uses the installation defaults. The Pell calculation fields on the Financial Aid Defaults page have the following values:
|
Field |
Value |
|---|---|
|
Pell Calculation Start |
Full-Time |
|
Pell Calculation Midterm |
Full-Time |
|
Pell Calculation Census |
Current Load |
The Packaging routine now compares the current date (March 1, 2000) against the term start date and census date to determine which enrollment value to use when calculating the student's Pell Grant:
|
Term |
Term Start Date |
FA Census Date |
|---|---|---|
|
Fall (0410) |
09/17/00 |
10/20/00 |
|
Spring (0430) |
01/23/01 |
03/10/01 |
Because the current date is before the term start date for both semesters, the Packaging routine uses the Pell Calculation Start value for enrollment, Full-Time. The student's Pell Grant award is 3,150.00 for the aid year, with a term amount of 1,575.00 for both terms.
The following table shows how the student's Pell Grant award changes as you recalculate the student's Pell Grant eligibility at different points in the aid year. The student's current load value after the census date is three-quarter time in fall and is half-time in spring. All amounts are in :
|
Current Date |
Pell Calculation Field Used - Fall |
Load |
Fall Pell Award Amt |
Pell Calculation Field Used - Spring |
Load |
Spring Pell Award Amt |
Total Pell Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
03/01/00 |
Pell Calculation Start |
Full Time |
1,575.00 |
Pell Calculation Start |
Full Time |
1,575.00 |
3,150.00 |
|
09/20/00 |
Pell Calculation Midterm |
Full Time |
1,575.00 |
Pell Calculation Start |
Full Time |
1,575.00 |
3,150.00 |
|
10/25/00 |
Pell Calculation Census |
Current Load (3/4 Time) |
1,182.00 |
Pell Calculation Start |
Full Time |
1,575.00 |
2,757.00 |
|
01/30/01 |
Pell Calculation Census |
Current Load (3/4 Time) |
1,182.00 |
Pell Calculation Midterm |
Full Time |
1,575.00 |
2,757.00 |
|
03/25/01 |
Pell Calculation Census |
Current Load (3/4 Time) |
1,182.00 |
Pell Calculation Census |
Current Load (Half Time) |
787.00 |
1,969.00 |
Before reinstating a previously canceled Pell Grant, you must change the custom split code from XX to a valid disbursement split code for the student. You can then click the Validation button to recalculate the Pell Grant amount. After you recalculate the Pell Grant amount, you must remember to post it before leaving the award entry page.
For the 2001 aid year and subsequent aid years, a student who has earned a bachelor's degree and is pursuing an initial teaching certification or licensing credential that does not lead to a graduate degree is eligible for a Pell Grant for that aid year. The Packaging process determines the eligibility for this type of student by evaluating the following fields:
|
Record |
Field |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
ISIR_STUDENT |
DEGREE_CERTIF |
The degree or certification the student is pursuing. The student must be pursuing a teaching credential. |
|
ISIR_STUDENT |
FIRST_BACH_DEGREE |
Indicates whether the student has a bachelor's degree. The student can have earned a bachelor's degree. |
|
STUDENT_FA_TERM |
NSLDS_LOAN_YEAR |
The NSLDS loan year for the student. Eligible students cannot be graduate students. |
If a student is pursuing a teaching credential and has a bachelor's degree and the student's NSLDS loan year is not graduate, then the Packaging process evaluates the student for a Pell Grant for the 2001 aid year and subsequent aid years.
If a student is not pursuing a teaching credential but has a bachelor's degree and the student's NSLDS loan year is not graduate, then the Packaging process does not evaluate the student for a Pell Grant for the 2001 aid year and subsequent aid years.