Awarding Loan Certifications as External Awards

The outcome of the External Award process updates award data in a student award package. A school loan certification request can become a candidate for a type of external award. The External Award process has options to identify the potential awarding of a loan certification request. School loan certifications are the only type of external award that is evaluated for federal need eligibility, based on the type of loan certification request.

Federal Stafford loan certification uses the Related Item Type setup to identify the subsidized and unsubsidized Stafford financial aid item types. The Stafford Loan Certification Awarding process evaluates the student's current federal need and posts the appropriate subsidized and unsubsidized award combination. If the student does not demonstrate need, the process returns an error message that the student is not eligible.

Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students (PLUS) and Alternative school loan certification requests require a single financial aid item type.

Note:

Use this option only if your school incorporates the processing of school loan certification request applications in Commonline version 4 (CL4) or Common Record CommonLine (CRC.) Awarding loan certification requests as an external award accomplishes the awarding step within the loan certification process for CL4 or CRC.