Upon registration for school, students favorite take, of course, is getting past the Financial Aid office. The long lines are always a hassle and every one tries to avoid getting the counselor who takes forever with all of her students. If you are guilty of the above, the perfect way to avoid these issues is to get registered on time.
"We want students to apply on time," Assistant Director of Financial aid, Mrs. Anne Rugege said. "It adds stress to every one when students do not apply on time because the counselors are rushed and students are impatient when they could have taken care of their business when they are suppose to."
Less than 50% of the students are registered for the next semester. For the students that are not registered, Mrs. Rugege suggests you apply for financial soon.
"Students are not aware of the opportunities they miss out on when they don’t register on time. You miss out on work-study, FSEOG and basically getting prepared for the semester because you have to wait in line when you could be getting yourselves prepared mentally.
There are come new changes every one should know about financial aid. The SAP (Satisfactory Academic Progress) policy has been arranges to benefit the students. For those students unaware of the details of SAP, it is a federal requirement that students maintain specific standards to continue receiving financial aid. Once those standards are not met, students are placed on SAP, which is a probationary period, until the GPA has improved.
"Before, if students did not have a 2.0 GPA for the semester or reached attempted hours, they would placed on SAP." Rugege.
The new requirements are as follows:
Freshman Classification (attempting hours less than 30) you must earn 50% of cumulative hours attempted with cumulative 1.5 GPA or better.
Sophomore Classification (attempted hours 30-59) you must earn 50% of cumulative attempted hours with a cumulative 1.75 GPA or better.
Junior Classification (attempted hours 60-89) you mist earn 67% of cumulative hours attempted with a cumulative 2.0 GPA or better.
Senior Classification (attempted hours 90 or more) you must earn 67% of cumulative hours attempted with a cumulative 2.0 GPA or better.
"We also allow students to take summer courses, as a grace period, to bring up their GPA before they move up to another classification so that they can avoid being on SAP," Rugege said.
If students are awarded financial aid after they have appealed SAP, and are placed on SAP again, they are encouraged to either pay for tuition out of their pockets or attend another regionally accredited school.
"I would love to encourage all students to register on time and do as well as they possibly can to attain a good GPA and try hard to avoid SAP," Rugege said.