Background for Awarding Financial Aid

This topic provides the background you will need to prepare to award financial aid using Anthology Student.

This topic includes some excerpts from "The Blue Book", a publication of the U.S. Department of Education. It is a guide for "accounting, record keeping, and reporting by postsecondary educational institutions for federally funded student financial aid programs".

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Financial Aid Packaging  (4 min.)

Student Financial Aid Packaging

Student financial aid packaging encompasses all the arrangements necessary for a student to pay for postsecondary education. For your institution, this means the identification of sources of funds available to the student and the processing required to make those funds available to the student and the institution.

Free Application for Federal Student Financial Aid (FAFSA)

To apply for Title IV financial aid funds, students must submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Most continuing postsecondary students may file a streamlined Renewal FAFSA. The FAFSA and Renewal FAFSA collect financial and other information from the student and the student's spouse (and parents of a dependent student) to calculate the student's EFC. The EFC represents the amount of money a student's family is expected to contribute toward the cost of the student's postsecondary education.

The resulting EFC is reported on the Student Aid Report (SAR). Institutions receive an electronic version of the same information, called the Institutional Student Information Record (ISIR). The EFC is used with the cost of attendance (COA) in determining an eligible student's need and the amount of aid that the student receives from each of the Title IV aid programs.

Expected Family Contribution (EFC)

The basic premise underlying Title IV programs is that a student and the student's family have primary responsibility for paying for the student's postsecondary education. Because the programs are intended to help students with financial need, eligibility for assistance from most of the programs is need-based. Congress developed an Expected Family Contribution (EFC) formula to determine the financial strength of a student's family and the student's need for Title IV assistance.

Term and Non-Term Program Versions

When your institution configures a program version, it selects an academic calendar. The academic calendar specifies whether or not a program version is term or non-term. Non-term program versions use:

  • Clock hours

  • Credit hours without terms

  • Non-standard terms according to the Department of Education guidelines

All others are term-based programs (such as program versions configured to use standard terms of quarters, trimesters, or semesters).

Award Years

Award years run from July 1st of one year to June 30th of the next year. In some cases, the financial aid package for a student for an academic year can span 2 award years. Pell grants must be prorated between award years when the academic year spans 2 award years. There are some cases where there can be more than one Pell grant for the same award year (such as when there are multiple enrollments). Loans, on the other hand, are always packaged for an academic year.

Academic Years

Typically, the Financial Aid Department assembles a package of financial aid for each student in each academic year. Anthology Student financial aid processing is also organized around academic years.

Academic year packaging is normally accomplished one year at a time because FAFSAs are completed and renewed on an annual basis. However, when a student is enrolled in a program version that has multiple academic years, Anthology Student creates a record for each academic year for the program version. That is why you will often see more than one academic year on the list for a student. You cannot package the succeeding years until FAFSAs or Renewal FAFSAs are completed for them.

You add the academic years when you prepare to award financial aid. You can add them manually or have Anthology Student automatically create the sequences using the configuration specified for the selected program version.

Loan Periods (Non-Term Program Versions Only) 

Loan periods are a financial aid element used to define a period of calendar time within the student’s academic year dates that are attributed to direct loans in their financial aid package. A loan period’s dates may or may not be the same as the academic year dates. Refer to the Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) GEN-13-13. For: 

  • Term program versions, Anthology Student automatically creates the loan periods using term associations and does not have a separate element within the system

  • Non-term program versions, the loan periods must be specified when you prepare to award a direct loan in a student’s financial aid package

You can add the sequences manually or have Anthology Student automatically create the sequences using the academic years you specified. 

Term Association

Your institution can configure program versions so that they have academic years and associated terms. Anthology Student then uses the terms to determine the loan periods and academic year dates for the Direct loans.

Based on the terms selected, the corresponding disbursement amount is calculated. For example, for a quarter-term program with only the fall and winter terms selected, the student will get packaged a third of the student's award eligibility for each disbursement (if it is not the last academic year for the student).

These are required to be accurately reported to COD, NSLDS under guidance provided in Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) GEN-13-13.

If you do not configure term associations, you must manually manage and adjust loan period and academic year dates to ensure regulatory compliance required under GEN-13-13. This includes processes such as Gainful Employment and SSCR.

Payment Periods (Non-Term Program Versions Only) 

Payment periods are a financial aid element used to define a period of time that is half of the academic year or loan period and used for all FSA disbursements except for Federal Work Study (FWS). Non-term program versions are eligible for two Title IV payment periods per academic year. Anthology Student automatically adds the Title IV payment periods when a student enrolls in the non-term program version. Anthology Student calculates Title IV payment periods according to the academic year settings for the program as mandated by the Department of Education. These payment periods are associated with the disbursements on the Awards page.

For detailed information about payment periods and the Department of Education guidelines for payment periods, see the Background for Payment Periods (Non-Term Program Versions Only).

Packaging Methods and Auto Packaging

Your institution can configure packaging methods. They contain the guidelines for your programs (such as the grade levels to which they apply and the minimum and maximum amounts that can be awarded for the fund sources).

When you award financial aid, you can select the packaging method and Anthology Student will automatically add the awards based on the packaging method you select (auto-packaging). You can also: 

  • If needed, repackage using the same or different packaging method

  • Manually add awards

  • Manage awards (For example, you can delete awards, reassign awards to other award years, and cancel disbursements.) 

ISIR Requirements

If the fund source for the award is configured to be Title IV and your institution has configured the campus to require: 

  • An ISIR on file to add a Title IV award, the student must have an ISIR on file

  • A verified ISIR to save a Title IV award with a status of Approved, the student must have a verified ISIR on file at your institution

Disbursements and Schedules

When you add awards, there are several options for scheduling disbursements. The schedules can be: 

  • Configured by your institution

  • Created by Anthology Student

  • Specified by the user

For example, your institution can:

  • Configure disbursement schedules to make the schedules selectable when you add an award (Selecting a schedule can also be configured to be required.)

  • Have Anthology Student automatically create disbursement schedules for payment periods, term associations, and academic year definitions

  • Have Anthology Student automatically create multiple disbursements for payment periods or term associations using the Multiple Disbursements feature (see Background for Multiple Disbursements)

How disbursements are scheduled at your institution will depend on your institution.

The Financial Aid Officer (FAO) can review a list of scheduled disbursements and approve those that are ready for payment processing. Approved disbursements are:

  • Processed and posted to the ledger card for the student in Student Accounts

  • Listed on the Received Disb and Refunds/Stipends tab when the award is selected in the list on the Awards tab

Anthology Student includes refund amounts when checking the disbursements against the total amount packaged. When adding scheduled and disbursed amounts (to prevent you from going over the amount packaged), Anthology Student must considers refunds on student loans (other than direct loans) and Pell grants. Direct loans are handled through the origination change.

Financial Aid award years begin on July 1st and end on June 30th. When Pell or other campus-based funds are awarded to a student, Anthology Student evaluates all scheduled disbursements for the award. If:

  • Any scheduled disbursement is dated after the June 30th deadline, Anthology Student prevents the disbursement from being counted as part of the award year

  • A disbursement date is after June 30th, the student must complete another FAFSA for the following award year and the disbursement will be paid from that award year

Decimals entered for percentages follow these rules.

  • If the number of disbursements is one or two, Anthology Student does not allow decimals.

  • If the number of disbursements is three or more, decimals are allowed.

  • All percentages entered for a financial aid type must add up to 100.00.

Crossover Packaging

Crossover Packaging permits only one Pell grant and one SEOG grant to be packaged per award year per enrollment. If you try to add a second Pell or a second SEOG grant, Anthology Student displays a message stating that another grant is already on file for the same award year. There is no option to override and continue adding the Pell grant.

Each disbursement of an award may be applied to an academic year.

If you have a student with a crossover term or payment period that has not yet been packaged, it can be evaluated and the availability for that time period can be calculated for either award year. This functionality is enabled when the package crossover term or payment period with award year 2 ISIR is configured for the Pell grant fund source. If the student does not have any additional eligibility for funds in the first award year for Pell, but the student has an ISIR on file for the second award year, the crossover period can be calculated and awarded with the new Pell grant for the second award year.

If you auto package the student in a crossover academic year with multiple award years, the system will package both award years simultaneously for the student when there is a valid ISIR on file for the second award year. When auto packaging, if you package the first award year, then receive the ISIR for the second award year at a later time, you can repackage the student and it will delete and recreate the awards based on the new information.

You cannot repackage an award once a paid fund source is associated with the academic year. If an award is completed for an academic year that has a crossover period, there is no new award year eligible ISIR, and any fund source is paid before the new award year ISIR, the system will not use autopackage to award the new award year Pell grant amount. The award needs to be done manually to add the new award year Pell grant since there may be adjustments to the remaining fund sources that will need to be applied, thus requiring evaluation by the institution.

If an award exists for the student, you can amend an existing Pell award for the current award year when adding a new Pell grant for the existing year for another academic year. All the existing information will still be used within the calculation and will be visible. When auto packaging and batch packaging, if additional eligibility is calculated on the crossover period, it will append to the existing award as well in another academic year.

Relationship to the Financial Aid General Ledger

Anthology Student displays a warning when the amount packaged for the fund source exceeds the allowable commitment level for the fund source. Anthology Student checks the Financial Aid General Ledger (FAGL) Authorization table for the amount authorized for the award year and multiplies this amount by the commitment level for the fund source. If the new packaging amount exceeds the commitment level, the warning is displayed.

After a student is packaged, Anthology Student updates the Amount Packaged column in the FAGL Authorization table. Anthology Student checks the commitment level for a fund source before adding the fund source to the student's scheduled aid. If the commitment level is exceeded, a message is displayed describing why a particular fund source was not auto-packaged. If an amount is auto-packaged, Anthology Student updates the Amount Packaged column in the FAGL Authorization table.

Relationship to Student Accounts

The Student Accounts Department handles a variety of procedures and transactions that are directly related to student financial aid. For example, Student Accounts staff: 

  • Specify student payment schedules
  • Specify stipend schedules
  • Calculate refunds
  • Post individual refunds
  • Post individual stipends
  • Print refund and stipend checks
  • Generate student statements and third-party invoices
  • Generate third-party invoices

Automatic Updates (Non-Term Program Versions Only) 

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

For information about the Student Pace Evaluation feature and all the values it can update, see Background for Student Pace Evaluation.

Truth in Lending

The Truth in Lending Act in Title I of the Consumer Credit Protection Act requires clear disclosure of key terms of the lending arrangement and all costs. For institutions, these regulations do not apply to lenders of student loans. The following credit terms must be disclosed:

  • Finance charge
  • Annual percentage rate
  • Amount financed
  • Total of payments

In cases where there is no financing charge, Truth in Lending information will be suppressed.

If you use Anthology Student to generate award letters, Anthology Student provides lending information associated with each specific fund source.

Half License Units

A program code in Financial Aid Packaging (frmFaStudAcadYears) does not allow packaging for programs that are half license units. Program versions are marked as Full License Units or Half License Units on the program version setup form in the legacy interface of Anthology Student.

Additional Information

You can find additional information about federal financial aid programs in the publications and Internet websites of the U.S. Department of Education.

  • "The Blue Book; Accounting, Recordkeeping, and Reporting by Postsecondary Educational Institutions for Federally Funded Student Financial Aid Programs".

  • "The Federal Student Financial Aid Handbook"

  • The U.S. Department of Education website home page at https://www.ed.gov/

  • Information for Financial Aid Professionals at https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center

Contact the various state Departments of Education for additional materials about student financial aid at the state and local levels.