Financial Aid Withdrawal Policy

Official Withdrawal

Students initiate the drop process by completing a course add/drop/withdrawal form at http://my.RochesterU.edu/.

Students who fully drop their courses, receive a 100% refund, and never attend any of their courses will have their aid fully reversed. The aid is returned to the appropriate institutional, state, federal, or third-party programs. Traditional students have until the published census date (even if they had attended courses), and RU Accelerate students have until the first day of their courses. For additional information on the traditional program policy, please see “Traditional students withdrawal/add/drop policy” later in this document. Traditional students have until census date to drop their courses; however, if they have begun attendance and received or could have received federal financial aid, a Return to Title IV (R2T4) process is still required to be completed and a student may be eligible for a post-withdrawal disbursement.

Rochester University is an institution that is “required to take attendance." Therefore, students will be administratively withdrawn from their courses if they cease attendance in all of their courses within a 14-day period.  An administrative withdrawal results in a W on the transcript for each course. Additionally, students that do not attend the first two weeks of any course will be administratively dropped from the course. An administrative drop results in the course being removed from the transcript, a potential reduction in course load status, and may result in a reduced financial aid package. 

Students who fully withdraw (after the start of their courses for RU Accelerate and graduate students and after census date for traditional students) that received or could have received federal financial aid will need to go through the R2T4 process. The process must be completed within 30 days of the date that the university determines the student withdrew, no later than 14 days after the student ceased attendance. Rochester University is required to take attendance by Department of Education definitions and therefore use the student’s last date of attendance (LDA) as the withdraw date for official and unofficial withdrawals. 

Traditional students are allowed to add a Session B course after census date, prior to the course start date, if it allows the student to continue in the block rate (12-18 credit hours). If the student is adding a Session B course and withdrawing from a course at the same time, the course addition must be processed first for the tuition and fees to calculate correctly.  If the student is below block rate (either initially or due to a withdrawal) or if it takes them over the block rate, students will be required to pay out of pocket and will not be eligible for financial aid for the added course(s). RU Accelerate students are allowed to add a Session B course up until the course state date.

Unofficial Withdrawals 

Students who receive all W’s and/or F’s within a semester must be evaluated after each semester.  SFS must evaluate if the student's financial aid file will need to be processed as a complete withdrawal based on the last date of attendance of the W and F courses.

Order in which Title IV Program funds must be returned:

When there is aid that is unearned, the order in which the funds are returned to the programs are as follows:

Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loans

Federal Direct Subsidized Loans

Federal Direct PLUS Loan

Federal Pell Grant

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant

For these types of withdrawals, as with all other withdrawals, SFS will use the last date of attendance (LDA) based on the documentation from the Office of the Registrar and/or attendance records as the student’s withdrawal date.

If a student fails to begin attendance in the number of credit hours for which the Federal Pell Grant was awarded, the institution must recalculate the student’s eligibility for Pell and campus-based funds based on a revised cost of education and enrollment status (CFR 690.80(b)(2)(ii)).

Traditional students withdrawal/add/drop policy

Students may add or drop courses until the first Friday of each semester (census date), after which courses may not be added and withdrawals are noted as “W” on transcripts.  Withdrawals are not allowed after the date published on the university calendar.

Financial Aid will be packaged based on original enrollment and will be re-evaluated after the third Friday of each session. At that point financial aid based on enrollment hours will be locked in.  If enrollment changes occur after this date, financial aid cannot be calculated for those enrollment hours.

Students will receive 100% refund on all course drops up until the first Friday of each semester (census date). After this date, tuition will be refunded on a pro-rata basis.

Administrative drops are evaluated after the second Friday of each session. The Office of the Registrar will drop students from any course in which they did not begin attendance by that date and financial aid will be re-evaluated.

Students enrolled in a course(s) offered in a Session A and/or Session B in the RU Accelerate program will be subject to additional governmental regulations with regards to withdrawing and dropping courses.  If a student is enrolled in at least one “full semester” course, these regulations do not apply. Students must attend and “complete” all of the “scheduled days” in which the student was originally registered and enrolled for. Students are considered a complete withdrawal if they cease to attend their Session A courses within a 14-day period, unless Rochester University has received, in writing, confirmation the student will continue to be enrolled and attend their Session B courses. If confirmation is not received by the student within 10 days of their last date of attendance in their Session A course(s), they will be considered to have completely withdrawn from Rochester University and both Session A and Session B course dates will be included as “scheduled days” when recalculating their financial aid eligibility. If a student requests to be dropped from their Session B courses while still attending their Session A courses, the Session B course dates will not be included as “scheduled days” when recalculating their financial aid eligibility.   

Special exceptions: A student is not considered withdrawn if:

• The university obtains written confirmation that the student will attend a later module in the same payment period or period of enrollment;
• The student completes the requirements for graduation;
• The student successfully completes one or more modules that, together, comprise at least 49% of the days in the payment period; or
• The student completes coursework equal to or greater than the coursework required for half-time enrollment.

A student meeting one or more of these exceptions is not considered a complete withdrawal for the semester and no Return to Title IV calculation is performed.

Title IV funds are to be returned as soon as possible, however, no later than 45 days from the determination of the student’s withdrawal (no later than 14 days after the student’s last date of attendance).

Post-Withdrawal Disbursements

The SFS adviser must obtain student or parent (for PLUS Loans) permission prior to loan disbursement. The student or parent may choose to decline some or all of the loan. To obtain permission to disburse the student or parent loan, the SFS adviser will notify the student or parent in writing of the loan funds available. Notification must be made within 30 days of the date the school determined the student withdrew. The notice must include: source, type, and amount of loan funds. The notice must advise that the student or parent may: reject, accept all, or accept part of the funds offered as well as provide the information necessary for the student or parent to make an informed decision as to whether the student or parent should accept any disbursement of loan funds. The notice must include explanation of the obligation to repay the loan funds, whether they are used to pay the RU balance or are credited to the borrower. The notice must include RU’s intention to apply the loan funds to pay current charges. Should the student or parent not wish to have loan funds credited to their RU account, they are to be informed that they may decline the loan and RU must not make the post-withdrawal disbursement. The notice should include information about the advantages of keeping loan debt to a minimum. The notice will include a deadline of 14 days for response in order to receive the funds. Following the 14-day period, RU is not required to make the post-withdrawal disbursement (should the student or parent respond after the 14 days and RU declines to make the disbursement, written notification must be sent to the student or parent of the decision and the reason – should the university agree to the disbursement, notification is not required). The SFS adviser will not disburse any funds until the student or parent has confirmed the funds are wanted. Student and parent confirmation must be documented in the student file.

The post-withdrawal disbursement funds may be used to automatically pay tuition, fees, and room and board charges.

The post-withdrawal disbursement funds may only be used for other school charges by permission from the student.

Determining Last Date of Attendance (LDA) or withdrawal date

To establish the withdrawal date for students who officially/unofficially withdraw, the Office of the Registrar will use the last recorded date of class attendance by the student, as documented by the university. Documentation is provided by faculty members in Canvas and in the Institutional student database system. Attendance is based on the below policy.

Online Attendance Policy

In the online environment attendance equals participation. Attendance in an online class is defined as logging in and actively participating in the course. Active online participation includes "ice breaker" activities; submitting a test, quiz, paper, or assignment to the instructor; or participating in online discussion boards.

Fair and equitable refund policy of Rochester University

Rochester University has a fair and equitable refund policy. As required under Section 668.22 of the federal regulations, the Student Financial Services office will calculate and provide for a refund based upon the percentage of aid earned during actual attendance.

All students who withdraw on or before the 60% point in time are subject to the pro rata refund requirements for federal financial aid determined by the Department of Education related to the calendar start and end dates of the Rochester University academic year. Students who withdraw after the 60% point are subject to the withdraw calculation, but are considered to have earned 100% of the federal financial aid earned for the tuition and fees charged for the scheduled days of attendance.