Academic Year And Payment Period - Non-Term
To accurately award students, Student Financial Planning defines the student's Borrower-Based Academic Year (BBAY) to be used for the student.
Overview
Student Financial Planning uses the student's program information, course information, and days of scheduled instruction for each course eligible to receive financial aid to calculate academic year, loan period, and grant period dates.
What Student Financial Planning Does Automatically
Student Financial Planning automatically does the following things:
Determines the student's academic year start and end dates
Student Financial Planning identifies the academic year start and end dates for the student's current and future academic years and determines if each academic year status is Actual or Projected.
Student Financial Planning creates the student's schedule by mapping out all courses that are and are not eligible for financial aid in the student's program. If a student decides to repeat a course that they passed and the course is financial aid eligible, the repeated session is not eligible for financial aid. Student Financial Planning stops adding courses once the student completes the program (based on completed credits).
Student Financial Planning maps out all weeks in the student's program based on the student's schedule. Student Financial Planning uses the first scheduled day of instruction for the first course in the student's program to determine how to map out the weeks. For example, if the first scheduled course begins on a Tuesday, then weeks are based on Tuesday through Monday. To determine how many weeks can be considered instructional weeks, Student Financial Planning uses each of the scheduled days of instruction for all courses on the student's schedule.
Student Financial Planning uses the student's academic year definition as the minimum length to determine the number of credits and instructional weeks required to close out an academic year. Anytime Student Financial Planning identifies there are fewer weeks and/or credits than defined by the academic year definition a shortened academic year is created. This may occur if the student is entering the institution with an overlapping loan, advancing degrees, or is completing their last academic year.
When the student's first academic year is shorter than the academic year definition, Student Financial Planning retains the number of credits and weeks. If the student should transfer internally during their first academic year, the system uses the retained shortened academic year weeks/credits when mapping out the new program academic year(s).
Before the next academic year is created, Student Financial Planning evaluates the current academic year to ensure that the total number of weeks and credits meet the academic year definition. If the total number of credits or instructional weeks do not meet the academic year definition, Student Financial Planning evaluates the "minimum number of credits in the final academic year to extend the previous academic year" configuration, (e.g. If there are two credits expected to be in the final academic year, then the institution may configure Student Financial Planning to include those course in the previous academic year, which causes the previous academic year to be greater than the academic year definition).
If the student completes a course after the last day of scheduled instruction, Student Financial Planning uses the Incomplete Resolution Date from the Student Academic and Financial Information (SAFI) message to determine which academic year the course credits should apply towards and the appropriate academic year end date.
Determines the number of credits and instructional weeks currently completed per academic year
Student Financial Planning determines the number of credits and instructional weeks the student has completed per academic year, to track the student's progress for each academic year. On a daily basis, Student Financial Planning (via batch process) updates the number of completed instructional weeks and the academic year/payment period status.
Student Financial Planning only counts credits for passed courses that are financial aid and program eligible. Credits and/or instructional weeks for courses that the student previously passed but repeated are not considered.
Student Financial Planning determines the number of instructional weeks the student has completed per academic year so that student's academic year progression can be tracked. Student Financial Planning uses the first scheduled course day in the student's program to determine the day of the week to use to determine if a week can be considered an instructional week. For example, if the first scheduled course begins on a Tuesday, then a course needs to be scheduled for Tuesday through Monday in order to count as an instructional week. Student Financial Planning does not count any instructional week after the student has withdrawn from the course.
Instructional weeks are counted beginning with the academic year start date to the lesser of the following:
- Official Last Date of Attendance
- Academic Year End Date
- Current system date
Calculates the Number of Months in the academic year
Student Financial Planning calculates the number of months in each academic year in the student's program in order to calculate the Cost of Attendance (COA).
Defines the Student loan period and loan payment periods for Non-Term Credit Hour Schools
Student Financial Planning determines the student's loan period and the corresponding loan payment periods according to the U.D. Department of Education, guidelines for non-term credit-hour schools for each of the student's academic years. Student Financial Planning determines the loan period award year and if the loan period/loan payment period is considered actual or projected.
Student Financial Planning defines the student's loan period as the lesser of the following:
- The length of the student's academic year
- The length of the student's program (if the length of the program is less than the academic year)
- The remaining length of the student's program (if the remaining length of the program is less than the academic year)
If the institution has a low cohort default rate and the length of the student’s academic year is less than or equal to 12 credits, Student Financial Planning considers the student to have only one loan period (with one loan payment period).
Updates the student's loan period dates and academic year dates
Student Financial Planning updates the student's loan period and subsequent loan payment periods for each of the student's academic years whenever there is an academic year re-evaluation completed so that the loan periods match the student's academic year.
Student Financial Planning calculates the academic year-end date based on the instructional weeks for the program for each academic year that is less than the program's academic year definition. Student Financial Planning reduces the student's loan period to 1/2 the length if the student withdraws and does not receive any Sub/Unsub/PLUS award amounts in the second loan payment period.
Determines the payment periods for non-term credit hour schools
Student Financial Planning determines the (actual or projected) payment periods for non-term credit hour schools so that funds can be disbursed according to the appropriate payment period schedule. Student Financial Planning assigns one payment period if the remaining credits are equal to or less than half an academic year. If the remaining credit hours are greater than half an academic year but less than a full academic year, Student Financial Planning assigns two payment periods.
Student Financial Planning calculates the following for each payment period
- Payment period start/end dates
- Number of expected credits
- Number of expected instructional weeks
- Number of credits currently completed
- Number of instructional weeks currently completed
Updates the academic year definition/academic year end date
Student Financial Planning updates the academic year definition academic year end date based on the extension of the loan period end date while the student is in the last academic year of their program.
The system should only extend the academic year definition academic year end date
- If the number of credits in the student's last academic year remains the same when the student is repackaged, but the number of days between the loan period start date and loan period end date is updated
- By the number of days the loan period end date was extended from the prior evaluation
Determines and Updates Loan Fees Associated with Loans for a Given Academic Year
See Loan Fee Management for more details.
To view the Loan Fees associated with a specific Award Year, please see New Award Year Updates information in the Product Release Notes. Choose the award year you want to review. See Doc ID 2613016.1 on My Oracle Support.
Configurable Attributes
The institution can configure the academic year definition by defining the number of instructional weeks and credits required to complete an academic year.
You can configure the minimum number of credits required for an academic year. If the minimum number of credits can't be completed due to the student completing their last academic year, the institution can configure Student Financial Planning to include those final credits (that total less then the minimum required credits) in the previous academic year. When this occurs, the academic year will exceed the number of credits and/or instructional weeks for a defined academic year.
Required Role Permissions
The user must have a role with the following General Permission(s) through Roles Management in order to view the following information.
- Student
See Set General Permissions Matrix for additional information.