Understanding Pell Grant Awarding

The Pell Grant awarding functionality automatically calculates a Pell Grant award based on a student's:

  • Maximum Scheduled Award

  • Pell Grant Formula and Enrollment

  • Total Percent Used

  • Lifetime Eligibility Used

Maximum Scheduled Award

The system determines a student's maximum scheduled Pell Grant (full-time, full-year Pell Grant award) by using:

  • Expected Family Contribution (EFC)

    The student's 9–month EFC from a valid Institutional Student Information Report (ISIR)

  • Pell Grant Cost of Attendance (COA)

    The student's Pell COA or Pell COA for Less-Than-Half-Time (LTHT)

    Note:

    If the student is enrolled only in terms tied to the Academic Award Period, Packaging uses the Academic Pell COA for determining Pell Grant awards.

    If the student is enrolled in terms tied to both the Academic and Non-Standard Award Periods, Packaging uses the Academic Pell COA for determining Pell Grant awards.

    If the student is enrolled only in terms tied to Non-Standard Award Period, Packaging uses the Non-Standard Pell COA for determining Pell Grant awards.

    See Defining Budget Components.

The system uses the student's EFC and Pell COA to determine the student's maximum scheduled Pell Grant award from the U.S. Department's Full-time Pell Grant payment schedule for the appropriate aid year.

Pell Grant Formula and Enrollment

These Pell Grant Formula options are available:

  • Formula 1 — FA Load

  • Formula 1 — Full-time

  • Formula 3 — FA Load

  • Formula 3 — Current Load

  • Formula 3 — Full-time

Among the formula options, there are three enrollment values used:

  • FA 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 can be locked using census-date locking. 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.

  • Current Load

    Current Load calculates the student's enrollment load using the units from sessions the student is currently enrolled (In Progress value from FA Term) in as well as sessions within the term that the student has already completed (Completed value from FA Term). This field enables you to calculate the enrollment load of Open Entry/Open Exit students more accurately.

  • Full-time

    The student's full-time enrollment is assumed.

You can choose to calculate the student's Pell Grant eligibility using different default enrollment values for different points in time in relation to 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.

Having different values for these three points in time gives you flexibility in calculating Pell Grant awards. For example, for Formula 1, you can calculate a student's Pell Grant using a projected full-time enrollment value for the period prior to the term start date. Then when the student's term begins, you can recalculate the student's Pell Grant award using the student's actual enrollment (FA Load).

Note:

If a term does not have a financial aid census date established, the Pell recalculation process uses the academic census date (defined in Student Records).

See Defining Pell Eligibility Calculation (PEC) Setup.

See Calculating Pell Grants.

Total Percent Used

The amount of Pell Grant the system can award a student also takes into account the percentage of a student's maximum scheduled Pell Grant award that has already been used. The system uses the Percent Scheduled Used from a student's incoming Aggregate Aid Data and any existing Pell Grant awards packaged by the system for the aid year to calculate the Total Percent Used.

The Percent Scheduled Used is populated by the NSLDS Data Push process but can also be overridden manually.

With the implementation of Year Round Pell beginning in the 2017-2018 award year, students can receive up to 150 percent of their Federal Pell Grant Scheduled Award in a single award year. You must define the maximum scheduled award percentage for First Pell (Pell1) and Second Pell (Pell2) in the Aggregate Aid Limit Setup.

See Defining Aggregate Aid Limit Percentage Maximums for Pell Grants.

See Calculating Pell Grants.

Lifetime Eligibility Used

The system takes into account the total amount of Pell Grant a student has used across all aid years in pursuit of an undergraduate degree. The system uses Lifetime Eligibility Used and Percent Scheduled Used from a student's incoming Aggregate Aid Data and any existing Pell Grant awards packaged by the system for the aid year to determine the student's remaining Pell Grant eligibility.