Background for Pell Grants

The Pell grant program is a type of post-secondary, educational federal grant program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. It is named after U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell and was originally known as the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant program. Pell grants, which do not require repayment, are awarded based on a financial need formula determined by the U.S. Congress using criteria submitted through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Annually, the Federal Pell Grant Program issues revisions to grant amounts and disbursement schedules. The grant disbursement schedule is maintained by the Federal government at https://fsapartners.ed.gov/knowledge-center/library/program/Pell%20Grant. Pell grants are COD grants.

Origination for Pell Grants

After you export originations, Anthology Student sets the origination status to Batched to Send. When an origination status is batched, you are not allowed to modify any origination information. The award is considered to be originated if the origination status is Accepted (A), Batched to Send (B), or Error/Rejected (E).

After the grant origination records are sent to COD, if changes are made to the data that affect the origination, Anthology Student captures the changes and prepares records to be exported to COD.

When you add a COD grant or loan, the default status is Not Ready to Send or Not Ready to Send (No ISIR).

The conditions under which the origination status can be set to Ready to Send depends on the policies at your institution. If your institution has configured Anthology Student to: 

  • Require a verified ISIR, you cannot add an award or specify an origination status of Ready to Send until the ISIR is received (ISIR Received Date has been populated by Anthology Student.)

  • Automatically update the origination status to Ready to Send if there is a change in the origination amount, the change is automatically sent to COD

  • Originate or certify estimated awards and automatically update the origination status to Ready to Send, the origination status is changed to Ready to Send for awards that do not have a status of canceled when an ISIR is imported or during the ISIR matching process

Anthology Student updates the status of disbursements to Ready to Send to COD when disbursements are approved to pay or actually paid. In addition, if refunds are made, Anthology Student marks the refund records as ready to be sent as well.

If your institution has not configured Anthology Student to allow origination for an estimated award, the origination status cannot be Ready to Send until the award has a status of Approved.

The status Not Ready to Send (No ISIR) may indicate that the ISIR record is not properly linked to the student record. In this case, the ISIR Matching process can be used to resolve the issue.

There are also other conditions that can cause a grant to have origination changes. For example, if the grant has been originated and you change the value for Verification Status on the Awards tab, you are also prompted to change the origination status to Ready to Send.

When a student's status changes to Cancelled and the student's Enrollment Start Date isn't populated, Anthology Student cancels any originated Pell award for the student and sends the updated record to COD.

Note: The system allows for student probationary periods, so if the Enrollment Start Date is populated and the student's status changes to Cancelled, the Pell award is not automatically cancelled. This gives users the opportunity to perform a Return to Title IV for the student.

If you are using the Student Pace Evaluation (SPE) tool, your institution can also configure Anthology Student to change the status of an originated award from Accepted or Batched to Send to Ready to Send when the date of a disbursement is updated by the SPE tool.

Amounts

Student eligibility for a Pell grant is calculated (estimated) when the student's FAFSA is completed. When the FAFSA is sent to the Common Origination and Disbursement (COD) system at the Department of Education, COD determines the Pell amount the student can receive. If the student is eligible for a Career Path Alternative Pell, the eligible amount is included.

The limited Pell grant has a maximum amount for an award year. The Career Pathway Alternative Pell grant disbursement schedules use the same maximum Pell grant eligible expected family contribution (EFC) that was used to develop the regular Federal Pell grant payment and disbursement schedules. Once the annual award amount is determined for a student using the Career Pathway Alternative Pell grant disbursement schedules, all other Pell funding calculations are the same as those used for regular Pell grant awards, but based on the Career Pathway Alternative Pell grant disbursement schedules. Calculation of the grant is based on the student’s full scheduled award under the regular Federal Pell grant payment schedule.

If the student has NSLDS history on file indicating that the student received Pell funds during the award year or if there are existing Pell awards within the system for the award year, Anthology subtracts the amounts from Pell grants that you add.

When a student has multiple enrollments, if the Financial Aid is not moved to the new current enrollment, Anthology Student allows you to enter multiple Pell awards when the enrollment is transferred up to the eligible amount. You cannot add more than the eligible Pell amount for the award year onto the second enrollment.

Note: When the 'Round Disbursements' option on the Fund Source configuration form is not configured for Pell and Registry Key settings are configured to allow cents and then Pell is imported and exported by Regulatory users, the Origination Amounts field on the Awarding form properly displays the number of cents . Origination amounts containing cents are more prevalent due to the reintroduction of Year-Round Pell and updates to the current Pell chart. The 'Add’l Eligibility Indicator' check box needs to be selected for Year-Round Pell to be considered for a student.

Disbursements

Anthology Student calculates the disbursements using the following formulas from the Department of Education.

Academic Calendar Formula
Standard terms of quarters, semesters, or trimesters with credit hours in which the fall through spring terms are equal to or greater than 30 weeks, or the academic year exceeds the definition of an academic year and the institution has a waiver 1
Non-standard terms with no term associations configured (Anthology Student considers the number of disbursements specified for academic year definition.)
Non-standard terms non SE9W with term associations configured 3
Clock hour or credit hours without terms (Applies to first time creation, and selecting recalculate Pell eligibility.) 4

For formula 4, Anthology Student calculates the maximum eligibility for the payment period and uses the lesser of the results of the 2 calculations shown in the table.

Academic Calendar Calculation Anthology Student Uses Minimum Definitions for the Academic Year
Clock hours Maximum Pell eligibility * hours in payment period/ hours in full academic year definition 900 hours
Maximum Pell eligibility * weeks in payment period/ weeks in full academic year definition 26 weeks
Credit hours Maximum Pell eligibility * credits in payment period/ credits in full academic year definition 24 credits
Maximum Pell eligibility * weeks in payment period/ weeks in full academic year definition 30 weeks

Pell Cost of Attendance Calculation

The Pell COA is always based on a full time student for a full 9-month academic year by residency.

The Pell COA populated on the Awarding form uses the value configured on the program version based on the housing status (With Parent, On Campus, Off Campus) when configured.

When the number of months in the academic year is less than 9, Anthology Student will calculate a student's Pell COA correctly if you also reduce the values in the Budget section on the Academic Year form.

Year-Round Pell Grants for Award Years 2017-2018 and Later

Anthology Student can process and package the Year-Round Pell Grant introduced by the U.S. Department of Education (ED). You can select the Additional Eligibility Indicator (AEI) check box when you add or edit a Pell grant to specify that a student is eligible for a Year-Round Pell grant. When the check box is selected for award year is 2017-2018 and later, a student is eligible to receive up to 150% of the full-time maximum Pell grant.

If the award year is 2017-2018 or later and you automatically package a student who is eligible for a year-round Pell grant, you must: 

  • Select the Additional Eligibility Indicator check box for the Pell grant

  • Calculate the additional disbursement amount and add it (You can also use the Recalculate Pell Eligibility button.) 

If the student has received full eligibility on a prior enrollment, you must add a new award for the additional eligibility on the new enrollment.

The check box is disabled if:

  • The enrollment status for a student is less than 1/2 time or other (The student must have an enrollment status of at least 1/2 time.)

  • The campus is using a servicer, such as Global (Pell validations are relaxed and the AEI check box is not displayed on the page.)

To clear the Additional Eligibility Indicator check box, you must create refunds or cancel scheduled disbursements to reduce the award amount to less than or equal to 100% eligibility. If you cancel a disbursement and it results in reducing the Pell award amount to 100% eligibility or lower, Anthology Student automatically clears the AEI check box

Anthology Student calculates the percentage using the following formula and includes scheduled, posted, and canceled disbursements, as well as refunds.

Amount Disbursed + Amount of Scheduled Disbursement - Amount Refunded

Anthology Student also:

  • Automatically updates the origination amount when changes are made to the award amount if the origination status is not Batched or Accepted

  • Creates adjustments if the award is already originated

  • Resets the amount to their original Pell eligibility amount if the award amount is greater than 100% and the check box is not selected for the student

  • Tracks the lifetime eligibility used so that it does not exceed Pell Lifetime Eligibility Used (LEU) of 600% for qualifying students

For additional information on how to implement Year-Round Pell at your institution, see the: