Awarding for Multiple Careers

Financial Aid enables you to package a student for one career for the first term and another career for one or more subsequent terms. You can also package a student for one career for the aid year, then later repackage the student with a different career for part of the aid year. PeopleSoft refers to this as "sequential career awarding."

You can also package a student for one career for the aid year and then replace the award package with awards for a second career for the aid year. The change in career would occur because the student changed to a different career for the aid year, prior to the start of the first term. PeopleSoft refers to this as "replacement career awarding."

For institutions with more than two terms, the system also allows you to award a student who changes from Career 1 for the aid year to Career 1 for Term 1 and Career 2 for Term 2 then back to Career 1 for Term 3. The system also supports awarding for students who change from Career 1 for the aid year to Career 1 for Term 1 and Career 2 for Term 2 and Career 3 for Term 3. This would be sequential career awarding with three careers instead of two.

The Student's Field Audits page displays changes made to the student's Financial Aid term during the build process. This assists you in identifying students who may need award adjustments or budget updates based on a career change or other student record change.

Mass Packaging can also process students who have different careers in different terms within the aid year. Mass Packaging packages the student using one career, then packages them again using the other career. Awards made under the first career are considered existing (passive) awards when the student is packaged for the second career.

The Career field on the award entry pages enables you to select the active career to be used for the current awarding session. If the student only has one career, then that career defaults into the Career field. You can make new awards or alter existing awards for the active career only. After you validate and post awards, or click the Reset button, you can select a different active career.

The non-active career and the awards associated with it are called a passive career and passive awards. Passive awards are listed first sequentially on the award entry page and active awards are listed below them. Passive awards and careers cannot be updated during the awarding session and are considered existing awards and careers. You cannot re-sequence active awards to intersperse them among passive awards.

The system considers passive awards first when it validates the awards, and passive awards are not changed by the system. Packaging includes awards for the passive career in the need summary amounts. Packaging also uses budget data for the passive career to calculate need summary amounts.

After you select a career and move out of the Career field, the Need Override check box is automatically selected for any existing awards—posted awards from an earlier awarding session—for the active career. You can choose to clear the Need Override check box on the existing awards for the active career.

Here is an example of how the Need Override check box functions with multiple NSLDS loan years and aggregate area limits. You award a 5,500.00 USD subsidized Stafford loan for the undergraduate career—senior NSLDS loan year—and validate and post the award. The aggregate total for the Stafford is 5,500.00 USD, which is the maximum allowed for a senior NSLDS loan year. Next, you award a 3,000.00 USD subsidized Stafford loan for the graduate career—first-year graduate NSLDS loan year—and validate and post that award. The aggregate total for the subsidized Stafford for the first-year graduate is 8,500.00 USD, which is the maximum allowed for a first year graduate NSLDS loan year. Now, you select the undergraduate career as the active career to add more awards. (The Need Override check box is automatically selected for the 5,500.00 USD subsidized Stafford award when you move out of the Career field because it is a previously posted award.) You add additional awards for the undergraduate career. When you validate and post the awards, the undergraduate career is active, the 5,500.00 USD subsidized Stafford award is reduced to 2,500.00 USD to stay within the aggregate maximum for a senior NSLDS loan year. The 3,000.00 USD subsidized Stafford made under the graduate career is added to the 2,500.00 USD from the undergraduate career making a total of 5,500.00 USD. This is the maximum allowed for a senior NSLDS loan year.

The following table gives an example of how you would use the Need Override check box in general. This is the award package the first time the student is packaged:

*Example based on Pell Grant awarding functionality for the 2009 and prior aid years.

This is the award package when you have reduced the Pell Grant so that it is awarded only for Term 1 (the student is a graduate student in Term 2) and you have selected the Need Override check box for the University Grant and Institutional Loan awards. Even though more need exists due to the reduced Pell Grant—the University Grant and Institutional Loan are not increased because the Need Override check box is selected.

*Example based on Pell Grant awarding functionality for the 2009 and prior aid years.

If a student is initially packaged for one career for the entire aid year and then changes to another career in a second or third term in the aid year, you can adjust the student's award by taking the steps outlined in this section. This situation generally occurs when a student changes careers part way through the aid year, and is called sequential career packaging.

The following step-by-step process should be used after the first term has begun and the student has been packaged for the entire aid year using one career. Then the Financial Aid Term Build process changes the student's career or the student informs the financial aid office that he or she has a different career for the second term.

To package sequential careers for a student:

1. Assume the student is in Career 1 for Term 1 and Term 2.

2. After Term 1 begins, the student changes to Career 2 for Term 2.

3. The Financial Aid Term build changes the student's career information, or you can change the career online.

   Adjust the budget for Career 1 in Term 2 down to zero and build a new budget for Career 2 in Term 2.

   Note: Reducing a budget to zero does not remove the budget record. When the career on Financial Aid term changes, the actual Financial Aid term record still exists. The records used in the initial awarding have the data changed, but they are not deleted.

4. Go to an award entry page.

   The student's current awards—for Career 1 in Terms 1 and 2—are displayed.

5. Select Career 1 from the available Career options. All the awards for Career 1 are now available to be edited.

6. Reduce the awards for Career 1 based on the number of terms the student is actually in Career 1 for the aid year.

   For example, if the student is Career 1 for Term 1 and Career 2 for Term 2, at a semester-based institution, reduce the student's Career 1 specific awards by one half. Departmental awards are an example of career-specific awards. If an award is not affected by a change in career, you do not need to adjust the award. For example, you may not need to adjust Perkins loans, Stafford loans, or University Grants. When you reduce an award, use a custom split to direct 100 percent of the award to Term 1 for Career 1 or specify a split code that distributes 100 percent of the award in Term 1 for Career 1. Validate and post your changes.

   Note: If you do not reduce the awards for the first career before packaging with the second career, the student may not have any need with which to receive additional awards, and no awards are made for the second career. The student can also be over-awarded if the need for the second career is less than the need for the first career because the second career's budget is reduced.

7. Select Career 2 from the available Career options on the award entry page. The remaining awards for Career 1 in Term 1 are now considered passive awards and are displayed at the top of the sequence order. Award the student for Career 2 for Term 2. Be sure to use disbursement splits that direct the Career 2 awards to Term 2 for disbursement. You can award the student for Career 2 using Manual Packaging, Auto Packaging, or Mass Packaging. Disbursement plans and split codes are attached to careers and only the disbursement plans and split codes for the selected career are available when awarding.

   Note: Use the Professional Judgement page to go back and make changes to awards for Career 1 after you have awarded for Career 2 if the awards you are changing have aggregate areas associated with them. For more information regarding this topic see the "Making Award Adjustments with Multiple Careers" section.

The following tables show an example of the first award package for Career 1, then the second award package for Career 2. In the example the student begins as an undergraduate for Terms 1 and 2, then changes to a graduate for Term 2. The following table shows the student's original package:

*Example based on Pell Grant awarding functionality for the 2009 and prior aid years.

The following table shows the student's package with an additional subsidized Stafford loan because of the student's increased eligibility as a graduate student:

*Example based on Pell Grant awarding functionality for the 2009 and prior aid years.

#Additional loan for graduate eligibility. You can use the same Financial Aid Item Type because it is a new career.

You can also use this step-by-step process for students who change from Career 1 for the aid year to Career 1 for Term 1 then Career 2 for Term 2 and back to Career 1 for Term 3. You would go through the step-by-step process first for the change to Career 2 then again for the change to Career 3.

If a student is packaged for one career for the aid year and then changes careers for the entire aid year, you can replace the awards of one career for awards of another career. To do this, cancel all of the awards for the first career. Then award new awards for the second career, even though you may be awarding the same award(s) for the second career as you awarded for the first career.

You must build a Financial Aid term and budget for the new career before you can award for the new career.

Here are the steps for packaging students when they change from one career to another career for the entire aid year. In other words, the first career is replaced with a second career.

To package a replacement career for a student:

1. Assume the student is in Career 1 for Term 1 and Term 2, and that before Term 1 begins the student changes to Career 2 for Term 1 and Term 2.

   The Financial Aid Term build changes the student's career information, or you can change the career online.

2. Reduce the Budget for Career 1 for Terms 1 and 2 down to zero and build a new Budget for Career 2 for Terms 1 and 2.

3. Go to an award entry page.

   You see the awards for Career 1.

4. Select Career 1 in the Career field.

   The Career 1 awards are now available to be edited.

5. Cancel all awards for Career 1.

6. Validate and post the canceled awards.

   This discards all the awards for Career 1.

7. Select Career 2 in the Career field.

8. Enter all the awards for Career 2, even those that were canceled for Career 1.

9. Validate and post the awards you have entered for Career 2.

Sequential career packaging, one form of multi-career packaging, enables you to package a student for a first term in one career and subsequent term(s) in a second career. An example of when you use sequential career packaging is a student at a semester school who is a graduating fourth-year undergraduate in the fall semester and a first-year graduate student in the spring semester.

When you package this student, Packaging acknowledges the student's change in career by evaluating the student's NSLDS loan year, as indicated by the disbursement plan associated with the Financial Aid Item Type. If the Financial Aid Item Type has an aggregate area associated with it, Packaging uses the student's NSLDS loan year from the appropriate disbursement plan to associate the Financial Aid Item Type with the appropriate aggregate level on the aggregate area table to determine the correct aggregate limit for the student. Financial Aid Item Types such as subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford Loans point to the same aggregate area for both undergraduate and graduate careers.

Normally, you package this student by packaging him or her as a fourth-year undergraduate for either the fall semester only or for the entire year prior to the start of the award year. Then, when the award year begins, you repackage the student as a first-year graduate for the spring semester. The student's award package includes the following Financial Aid Item Types:

Packaging has used the NSLDS loan year values from the disbursement plans to identify the aggregate limits for his or her subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford Loans correctly. In the fall semester, the student receives a subsidized Stafford for 5,500.00 USD, the aggregate limit for fourth-year undergraduates in the subsidized Stafford aggregate area. The student does not receive an unsubsidized Stafford because he or she has already reached the aggregate limit for fourth-year undergraduates in the unsubsidized Stafford aggregate area. In the spring semester, the student receives an additional 3,000.00 USD subsidized Stafford loan, because the aggregate limit for first-year graduates is 8,500.00 USD, and the student has only received 5,500.00 USD in this aid year—as an undergraduate. The student also receives an unsubsidized Stafford loan for 10,000.00 USD because the aggregate limit for graduate students is higher than that for undergraduate students.

A problem can occur when you adjust the student's fall term after you have packaged the student as a graduate for the spring semester. When you adjust any undergraduate award, Packaging reevaluates the aggregate limit for any award that is associated with an aggregate area. If a graduate award exists within the same aid year associated with the same aggregate area as an undergraduate award, Packaging considers both the undergraduate and graduate amounts towards the undergraduate aggregate limit. Consequently, Packaging decreases the undergraduate award by the graduate award amount so that the undergraduate aggregate limit is not exceeded. For this student, if you adjust one of the fall semester awards (setting the student's University Grant to 1,450.00 USD) the student's subsidized Stafford loan decreases to 2,500.00 USD (undergraduate limit of 5,500.00 USD minus the graduate award of 3,000.00 USD).

Packaging sets the subsidized Stafford to 2,500.00 USD while repackaging the student's fall semester awards because the student's spring semester award is associated with the same aggregate area as his or her fall Stafford award. Based on the spring semester subsidized Stafford award, Packaging determines that the student has exceeded his or her fourth-year undergraduate aggregate limit of 5,500.00 USD for subsidized Stafford loans. Therefore, Packaging decreases the student's fall subsidized Stafford loan award to 2,500.00 USD, so that the student is under the aggregate limit of 5,500.00 USD.

Packaging alerts you to a student whose award would be decreased in this situation. Packaging checks for the existence of two nonzero amounts for differing aggregate levels in an aggregate area within the same aid year for a student. If a student meets this criteria, an error message stating, "Student has an award with multiple aggregate levels; unable to package. Awards having multiple aggregate levels MUST be repackaged via Professional Judgement. DO NOT POST the set of awards generated in this Packaging Session, or it resets the loan to 0.00 USD and cancels all subsequent loan transactions. Repackage all awards via the Award Override page" appears. You may also see a shorter version of this error message: "Student has an award with multiple aggregate levels; unable to package."

If you receive either of the previously listed error messages, you must cancel out of the award entry page without posting the current transaction and repackage the student using the Professional Judgement page.

When you are using Auto Packaging, only the packaging plans for the active career are available. Remember also, that the Packaging process evaluates any passive awards first before it auto packages awards for the active career.

Mass Packaging can also accommodate students with multiple careers. If a student with multiple careers—one career for the first term and another career for subsequent terms—is selected for Mass Packaging, the student is associated with multiple packaging plans based on their multiple careers and the selection criteria (packaging equations) associated with that career's packaging plan. Mass Packaging processes the student for the first career based on the processing order of the packaging plan, then awards for the second career based on the processing order of the packaging plan. The processing order for the packaging plans determines which packaging plan is used and, therefore, which career is packaged first. Awards made using a Career 1 packaging plan are passed on as passive awards to be included as part of any subsequent awarding for Career 2.

If you have students who have multiple careers (Career 1 and Career 2) and some students should be packaged for Career 1 first while others should be packaged for Career 2 first, you would need to run these two groups of students in separate Mass Packaging runs, changing the processing order on your packaging plans for each run. The packaging plan's processing order determines the order in which a career is packaged because the packaging plans are tied to careers.

You cannot allow students with posted awards in multiple careers to enter a Mass Packaging run to be selected for packaging plans for multiple careers. In live mode, Mass Packaging aborts without any messages if this is allowed. In simulation mode, your packaging results do not appear correct because the previous career's awards are not posted in simulation mode and, therefore, are not considered as existing awards when the second career is packaged. A student can have posted awards in multiple careers and go through Mass Packaging using one packaging plan for one career at a time.

Posted awards for multiple careers means the student has been awarded at least one award for Career 1 and at least one award for Career 2 and those awards are posted before the student is processed by Mass Packaging. To package students with posted awards in multiple careers using Mass Packaging, you should keep track of these students and only process them in Mass Packaging for one career at a time. The way to process students for one career at a time is to select the students, then make all but one of their careers invalid on the Mass Packaging by Students page or Institutional Mass Packaging by Student page. Assign packaging plans to the students. Then run Mass Packaging in simulation mode and review the results. If the results are correct, run Mass Packaging in live mode. This causes the awards to be posted for the first career. Now repeat the process for a second career.

Awards for the first career must posted to be considered as existing awards for any subsequent career's packaging. When you run Mass Packaging in simulation mode with more than one career, when the second career is being packaged, the simulated awards packaged for the first career are not considered existing awards because they are not yet posted.