1. Using Student Financial Planning
  2. Update COA To Actual Or Total

Update COA To Actual Or Total

You can manually update the student Cost of Attendance to Total or Actual.

Overview

Downstream Impact

The institution may need to monitor students with a manually overridden cost of attendance during the academic year that is overridden. Once the COA has been overridden, it remains overridden for the duration of the Academic Year regardless of any future repackage.

Student Financial Planning automatically calculates a student's Total COA using defined configuration and the academic year length. The Total COA is used in the Federal Student Aid (FSA) eligibility and awarding purposes. Student Financial Planning creates a sum of all configured and non-configured COA components/items to determine the Total COA for each academic year and uses standard rounding rules when the calculated Total COA is not a whole number.

SFP calculates and displays the Total COA for each academic year in the student's program:

Term Program: For term programs, Student Financial Planning calculates the Total COA for each academic year in the student's Term program. Student Financial Planning calculates the Total COA for each Term that the student attends (separately), saves it, and then adds up all of the terms in the academic year to determine the Total COA for the academic year. Student Financial Planning must use the Military Costs and Budget Costs when calculating the student's budget and provide a breakdown of the COA per term, for the entire academic year. A Summer Term COA is added to any Academic Year in which the summer term is associated (header or trailer).

Non-Term Program: For non-term programs, Student Financial Planning calculates the Total COA for the full Academic Year.

Total COA Equation: Sum of all COA Components = Total COA Attendance

COA Component Equation: Sum of all COA Items = COA Component

Budget Costs

Student Financial Planning uses Budget Costsunless the institution configures one of the following enhanced components to be present. Student Financial Planning determines which to use based on the FasStudentInitiationEvent message.

  • Budget Costs - With Parent
  • Budget Costs - Off Campus
  • Budget Costs - On Campus

Student Financial Planning Automatically calculates and displays the student's Actual COA based on all Actual charges and uses standard rounding rules when the calculated Actual COA is not a whole number. Student Financial Planning applies the Actual COA on an academic year basis.

SFP calculates and displays the Actual COA as an alternative to the Total COA value:

Term Program: For term programs, Student Financial Planning calculates the Actual COA for each academic year in the student's Term program. Student Financial Planning calculates the Actual COA for each Term that the student attends (separately), saves it, and then adds up all of the terms in the academic year to determine the Total COA for the academic year. Student Financial Planning must use the Military Costs and Budget Costs when calculating the student's budget and provide a breakdown of the COA per term, for the entire academic year.

Non-Term Program: For non-term programs, Student Financial Planning calculates the Actual COA for the full Academic Year.

Actual COA Equation: Direct Costs + (the Budget Costs) = Actual COA

Budget Costs

  • Budget Costs - Off Campus
  • Budget Costs - With Parents
  • Budget Costs - On Campus
  • Military Costs (if BAH is indicated)
  • Loan Fees (if configured to add Actual Loan Fees)

Student Financial Planning uses Budget Costs unless the institution configures one of the following enhanced components to be present. Student Financial Planning determines which to use based on the FasStudentInitiationEvent message.

  • Budget Costs - With Parent
  • Budget Costs - Off Campus
  • Budget Costs - On Campus

Standard Rounding Rules: Round up if the decimal is .50 or higher; round down if it is less than .50

Student Financial Planning calculates a student's Direct Costs, based on received invoiced charges in order to determine if there is a shortfall in the student's package. Student Financial Planning completes a summation of Actual and Projected student, program and course level charges per academic year. Student Financial Planning only uses Actual charges in order to calculate the Student's Direct Cost.

Status Definitions

Actual: A charge that has been invoiced

Estimated: A projected charge that has not been invoiced

Required Role Permissions

The user must have a role with the following General Permission(s) through Roles Management in order to complete the manual processing steps listed below.

  • Student
  • Edit COA

See Set General Permissions Matrix for additional information.

Manual Processing Steps

Log into the Student Financial Planning User Interface (UI)

  1. Enter the student's external student ID number in the search field located in the upper right-hand corner
  2. Navigate to Student > Financial Information > Packaging
  3. Click the icon in the Cost of Attendance table to update
  4. Choose Actual or Total based on need
  5. Add a Comment
  6. Save
  7. Review the current packaging version and compare it to the packaging version prior to the COA update

Current Package

Previous Package

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