General Background for SPE

You can use Anthology Student to evaluate the academic progress of students, project the dates that need to be extended due to lack of academic progress, and change the dates. You can evaluate and change dates:

Manually using the Student Pace Evaluation (SPE) feature in Anthology Student
Automatically by customizing and scheduling SQL jobs outside of Anthology Student

SQL jobs can also make additional changes not available in the interface, such as re-associating courses to payment periods and revising billing.

Any changes made manually or with SPE are overwritten by SQL jobs unless you have excluded (locked) the payment period from auto adjustment.

Dates SPE Can Evaluate and Change

The dates that can be changed depend on the academic calendar selected for the program version. The table provides an overview of the dates that can be changed for the different academic calendars.

Academic Calendar		Dates That Can Be Changed
Academic Calendar		Academic Year	Title IV Payment Period	Title IV Grant Disbursement	Graduation	Externship	Payment Period	BBAY	Disbursement	Housing Lease
1	Credit hours - Non‑standard terms				X	X	X	X	X	X
2	Credit hours - Standard terms of quarters				X	X
3	Credit hours - Standard terms of semesters				X	X
4	Credit hours - Standard terms of trimesters				X	X
5	Clock hours	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
6	Credit hours without terms	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X

Updates are audited and can be displayed on the Audit list for the student (Select the Students tile > select the name in the Students list > expand Financial Aid > select the Audit tile.

When Payment Periods Should Be Updated

Per Federal Student Aid standards, students enrolled in non-term and clock hour programs must not progress to their subsequent payment period until they have successfully completed the required number of clock hours or credits and weeks for each academic year within their program of study.

Example:

A student is enrolled in a 48-credit semester non-term program version with an academic year defined as 24 credits and 30 weeks. The student does not progress to the second academic year until successfully completing 24 credits and 30 weeks of instruction.

If the student was originally scheduled to complete the first academic year on April 5, 2021, for a program that started on September 1, 2020, and the student had successfully completed only 20 credits due to failing a 4-semester credit course, the student would remain in the first academic year until successfully retaking and passing the failed course.

When students:

Are eligible for their subsequent payment period, Anthology Student makes no changes
Are not eligible for their subsequent payment period, Anthology Student can project and change the existing payment periods and academic year for the student

Locked Payment Periods

If you are using SPE, you can use the Awarding page to include and exclude (lock) the dates that are adjusted automatically when credits or hours are applied to the sequences for:

Academic years and payment periods
Loan periods and payment periods

Academic years and payment periods and loan periods and payment periods are independent of each other. For example, if you lock an academic year, the loan period can be unlocked.

The program includes logic to ensure dates are updated correctly. For example, if you:

Lock payment period 1, Anthology Student locks the academic year start date and displays a message so that you can lock all previous sequences
Unlock the start date for the academic year, Anthology Student unlocks the payment period and displays a message so that you can unlock all the following sequences

If you lock a start date, SPE can still adjust the end dates. For example, if you lock payment period 1, SPE can still adjust the:

End date of payment period 1
End date of the academic year or loan period
Start and end dates of payment period 2

If you lock an end date for a payment period, all previous sequences must also be locked.

While academic years and payment periods and loan periods and payment periods are independent of each other, the same logic is used for both.

If needed, you can manually change the dates of locked sequences and payment periods.

Completed Flags

Scheduled Complete Flag

Anthology Student flags a payment period as scheduled complete in the database when enough courses are registered to complete the credits or hours of a payment period. SPE can change the final academic years and academic years and loan periods for any extra credits or hours.

Anthology Student uses courses in a scheduled, current, or completed status to determine if there are enough courses with credits that would potentially complete the payment period. If a course is completed, the grade posted must earn the credits to use the credits or hours value of the course. The scheduled complete flag does not reference the Instructional Weeks (IW) milestone.

Complete Flag

Anthology Student flags a payment period as completed when both conditions are met:

The instructional weeks date for the payment period is equal to or less than the system date.
There are enough credits or hours associated with grades that earn the credits or meet the minimum grade points configured for the course requirement.

When a payment period is flagged as complete, SPE will not change the dates associated with that payment period. Locks applied to payment periods do not affect the setting of the completed flag. If needed, you can manually change the dates of completed payment periods.

Not Complete Flag

Anthology Student can also switch the flag back to not complete if grades affecting the completion conditions are entered after the payment period is flagged as complete. Once flagged as not completed, the dates can be adjusted again by the SPE tool.

Completed Flags and Disallow Rolling Credits

Academic Years

In any payment period of an academic year where SPE was not configured to disallow rolling credits, the academic years progress at the rate defined in the FSA Handbook. Therefore, scheduled complete and complete flags for academic year payment periods are set using cumulative counts (for the enrollment) of credits or hours for course work with an end date equal to or later than the SPE start date. No faster progression occurs with this setting.

Example:

For a 24-credit academic year sequence utilizing 12-credit payment periods, Anthology Student sets the flags at 12-credit intervals (such as 12, 24, 36, 48) respectively. The payment periods of the first academic year sequence may contain 28 actual credits even though the academic year only requires 24 (12 for each PP). The 4 extra credits and any extra weeks are counted toward completing the credit and weeks requirement of the next sequence.

Loan Periods

For loan periods, the flags are applied using cumulative counts within each loan period. There is no carryover of extra credits or hours to the subsequent loan period sequences.

Example:

For a 24-credit academic year sequence utilizing 12-credit payment periods (PPs), Anthology Student sets the flags at 12, 24|reset the counts| 12,24| reset the counts, respectively. The payment periods of the first loan period sequence may contain 28 actual credits even though the loan period only requires 24 (12 for each PP). The 4 extra credits and any extra weeks are not counted toward completing the credit and weeks requirement of the next sequence. Any extra credits or hours or weeks earned during the first payment period of a loan period sequence can carry over to the second payment period of that sequence.

Applying the Flags With "Disallow Rolling Credits" Enabled

If SPE is configured to disallow rolling credits, flags for academic year payment periods mimic the logic used for loan periods. The flags are applied using cumulative counts within each loan period (academic year). There is no carryover of extra credits or hours to the subsequent academic year sequence.

Academic year and loan period evaluation is triggered at the end of payment period 2 for each sequence to determine if there are any extra credits or hours earned during that sequence.

When the Courses Exempt from Progression (CEFP) logic is:

Enabled, courses flagged as Y are used to determine the scheduled complete and complete status. Clock hour programs use scheduled hours for current and scheduled courses and attended hours for completed courses.
Disabled, current and scheduled courses always progress a student. If a course is completed, SPE uses completed courses with a grade that earns the credits to determine the scheduled complete and complete status. For hours-based programs, the attended course hours are used to determine the scheduled complete and complete status. Scheduled hours are evaluated for scheduled and current courses.

During the final academic year and loan period, the scheduled complete flag can be set as a result of transfer credits being approved. In this case, SPE reduces the duration of the final academic year and loan period and may attempt to remove a payment period. If a payment period cannot be removed, the academic year and loan period is not adjusted and a Contact Manager task is created.

If payment period 2 has a disbursement and financial aid for the campus:

Has been configured to "Allow zero out extra AY/LP", Anthology Student sets payment period 2 to zero (0)
Has not been configured to "Allow zero out extra AY/LP", Anthology Student notifies you that the academic year and loan period could not be adjusted

See Configure COD & Packaging Settings for Campuses for details about the "Allow zero out extra AY/LP" option.

The scheduled complete flag is:

Removed, when transfer credits are not approved (In this case, SPE extends the final academic year.)
Not set or is removed on the academic year and loan periods, when not enough courses are registered to complete the credits or hours requirement of that payment period

Align Academic Year and Payment Period Dates to Course Section Dates

The "Always align Academic Year and Payment Period dates to Course Section Dates" option allows the SPE tool to measure student progression using only courses that are part of the program version course list and meet a minimum grade point if configured.

If no course is current, the next payment period starts on the next course start date. A retake course is allowed to start a subsequent payment period even if the prior instance of the course earned the credits or hours; however, the credits or hours and weeks will not count toward the progression of the payment period.

Allow Courses to Be Exempt from Progression

The "Allow courses to be exempt from progression" option allows the SPE tool to measure student progression using only courses that are part of the program version course list and meet a minimum grade point if configured. If no minimum grade point is configured, a course with a posted grade uses the “Credits Earned” flag to determine if the course meets progression requirements. Financial Aid officers will see that non-term students can now register for courses outside their program requirements without affecting the timing of Title IV disbursements.

Important: With the “Credits Earned” flag enabled, Anthology Student uses the Enrollment Status Credits (Hours) value instead of the Credit or Hours value of the course. This applies to transfer credits, CLEP courses, etc. when building remaining academic years and loan periods to complete the program version requirements.

Anthology Student tracks a Student Pace Evaluation start date which is the latest of the following dates:

Program Version Start Date (if blank, Exp. Start Date)
Area of Study (AOS) transfer complete
Re-entry > 180

Course Flags

Student Pace Evaluation can flag courses on the student schedule as:

"R"- CLEP or Transfer credits/hours, as well as associated course work with passing grades and meeting any minimum grade point requirements that are before the Student Pace Evaluation start date. The "R" flag reduces the number of credits needed to complete after the SPE start date.
“Y” - Associated course work after the SPE start date and any courses on the schedule that meet the program requirements are used for progression
“N” - Courses not meeting program requirements

When "Allow courses to be exempt from progression" is enabled on SPE and a student takes a course that is not configured in the Program Version Course List to apply to the pace progression criteria, the SPE ignores the course when calculating academic year (AY) and payment period (PP) dates, and adjusts based on the information associated with the next scheduled course that applies to the student's program version. If a posted final grade for a course does not meet the minimum grade point criteria established on the Program Version Course List, the course is not considered when progressing the student through the student's program version. Anthology Student also uses this criterion when determining the graduation date for the student.

Registrars with permissions can override the system evaluation of these courses, regardless of the course category or minimum grade point requirements.

You can change a Course Category using the DPA fulfillment logic and move a course to Taken Not Applied to change how SPE evaluates the course.

After the "Allow courses to be exempt from progression" check box is selected, the following message is displayed:

"The system has detected auto locking is not enabled. Enabling Course Progression could affect the dates of completed Academic Years and Loan Periods. It is strongly recommended that all prior completed Academic Years and Loan Periods be locked prior to enabling this feature. For more information, please read Help for configuring the "Auto Locking" feature."

Retain AY/LP Progression

The "Retain AY/LP progression" option indicates that confirmation is to occur on Academic Year/Loan Period (AY/LP) sequence attributes (credit/hours and weeks).

When "Allow courses to be exempt from progression" is enabled, AY/LP evaluation logic must use the enrollstatuscredits/hours value from all course work linked to the enrollment that would reduce the credits/hours needed to complete the enrollment. Performing an Area of Study change that would not include course work from the prior Area of Study (AOS) or Program Version (PV) that resides in a completed payment period. The "Retain AY/LP progression" check box must be selected to initiate this logic.

The AY/LP logic uses a centralized function to determine if a course is used to progress the student for the PV/AOS of the new enrollment after a transfer or the new AOS when an AOS change is performed.

When Course progression is turned on,

Total credits completed =

Course work that would progress the student (function returns “R” and uses Enrollment Status Credits value)

+ Transfer credits (also use enrollment status credits)

+ CLEP courses (also use enrollment status credits).

The number of AY/LP sequences needed is adjusted to meet

Credits Required – total enrollment status credits completed.

Disallow Rolling Credits/Hours

When the "Disallow Rolling Credits/Hours" option is selected, schools can progress the Academic Year (AY) and associated Payment Periods using the same logic as the Loan Period (LP) and associated Loan Payment Periods. This means the dates for Academic Years will align with the dates of Loan Periods throughout the student's life cycle. The centralized logic in Anthology Student can calculate Academic Year dates in this fashion even if the student has no loan periods.

Extra credits and weeks earned by a student during an AY or LP will not roll over into a subsequent AY or LP.

Enable System Auto Locking Logic

The Auto Locking logic creates an automated process that locks past and current payment periods of students with a Last Date of Attendance (LDA) greater than 180 days.

When an academic year sequence begins, Anthology Student locks the start date and thus locks all previous academic year start dates in non-term programs. Financial Aid and Student Account offices may require the auto-lock option to prevent Anthology Student from updating the start dates of the academic year or payment period for enrolled and active students.

If the "Allow courses to be exempt from progression" option is selected, auto-locking should be enabled. Always configure auto-locking and course exemption from progression before running a Student Pace Evaluation job.

Title IV Loan

The "Title IV Loan" option enables the updating of Title IV Loan Period dates for academic calendars 5 (Clock Hours) and 6 (Credit Hours without Terms).

When a student fails to progress as expected, this may cause their Loan Period to be extended. Should the Loan Period be extended, SPE will make the corresponding adjustments to the BBAY Start and End Dates by extending the BBAY Start and End Dates by the same number of days the Loan Period Start and End Dates have been extended. For the Loan Period dates and BBAY dates to be adjusted by the SPE evaluation process, the Title IV Loan configuration must be enabled on the SPE settings or selected at the time of SPE evaluation.