Leave of Absence
You can evaluate a student's eligibility for financial aid when you receive notice of an approved Leave of Absence (LOA).
Overview
An LOA is a temporary interruption in a student’s program of study and refers to the specific time period when a student isn't in attendance. An LOA isn't required if a student isn't in attendance only for an institutionally scheduled break. However, a scheduled break may occur during an LOA.
You may disburse the following funds: Pell, TEACH, IASG, or FSEOG to a student on an LOA. However, you may not disburse Direct Loan funds to a student on an LOA. Because a Federal Student Aid (FSA) credit balance has funds that have already been disbursed, a school must pay an FSA credit balance to a student on an LOA.
What Student Financial Planning Does Automatically
Student Financial Planning automatically does the following things:
Receives the LOA Information from the Institution's Student Information System (SIS)
The application is able to receive an inbound LOA message from the institution's SIS. The message should include the start and end dates of the LOA, type of LOA, the status of the LOA and the total number of days on break. The application records and displays this information on the LOA Information page of the student record and begins the LOA process.
Re-Evaluates the Academic Year and Disbursements During an LOA period
Upon receipt of an Approved LOA, the application reschedules every disbursement that can't be disbursed during an LOA until the LOA period has elapsed. The application repackages the student and updates the Academic Year and Payment Period based on the student's updated course schedule. If an LOA is canceled, the application resets the disbursement date to, "No longer considered an LOA period" and updates the disbursement dates as necessary.
Determines if any Funds Disbursed During an LOA Period and if Any of Those Disbursements Should Be Returned
If an inbound LOA message is received that has occurred in the past, the application with either ignore or return those disbursements based on the institutions configuration. If the "Configure LOA Institutional Preferences, Return loan funds disbursed during backdated LOA" is true, the application returns any disbursement that isn't allowed to be disbursed during an LOA period and reschedules the returned amount for a date that is after the LOA end date, following the logic for setting the disbursement date. If however, the "Configure LOA Institutional Preferences, Return loan funds disbursed during backdated LOA" is false, the application will not trigger the disbursement refund process.
Configurable Attributes
Configure LOA Institutional Preferences
The institution can configure preferences regarding how Leave of Absences are validated in the application. Preferences can be configured to validate the number of break days and if the application should return loan funds that have a disbursement date that overlaps an LOA period, for example, a backdated LOA.
Navigation to the Student Financial Planning User Interface Functionality
To View the LOA and Break Information