| AwardYear: 1998-1999 EnterChapterNo: 4 EnterChapterTitle: Federal Pell Grant Program SectionNumber: 3 SectionTitle: Special Program Considerations PageNumbers: 45-56 In the preceding section, we described Pell calculations that apply to most postsecondary educational programs. However, some schools may have categories of students or educational programs that require special handling. CONSORTIUM AGREEMENTS (BETWEEN ELIGIBLE SCHOOLS) 1 ------------------------------------------------------- 1 If the written agreement is with an ineligible school, see the discussion of contractual agreements in Chapter 3, Section 5. A school may not enter a contractual agreement with a school that has lost its eligibility. In a contractual agreement with an ineligible school, the student must be enrolled for the entire program at the eligible school, even though a portion of the program is provided by contract with the ineligible school. Thus, the student's enrollment status and COA are based on the hours taken at, and the costs in, the eligible program. [[34 CFR 690.9]] The Federal Pell Grant Program regulations prohibit a student from receiving a Pell from more than one school at the same time. However, a school is allowed to pay a student enrolled in one of its eligible programs for courses taken at other eligible schools if those courses apply to the degree or certificate in the first school's program. To pay such a student, the school must first have a written consortium agreement with the other school(s) the student is attending. [[Elements of a consortium agreement]] A consortium agreement establishes that the "home" institution considers the student to be enrolled in an eligible program and unconditionally accepts the credits earned at the "host" institution for credit towards the educational program at the home school. The agreement should further specify which school will be responsible for awarding and disbursing aid and monitoring student eligibility. (Usually, the home institution is responsible for disbursements, but if the student is enrolled for a full term or academic year at the host institution, it may be easier for the host institution to monitor the student's eligibility and make payments.) Other factors that may need to be addressed in the agreement are the applicable refund policy, satisfactory progress policy, and any procedures for calculating the total COA and enrollment status for the student. The consortium agreement can be a blanket agreement between two or more eligible schools, or it can be written for a specific student. Such an agreement is often used when the student takes related courses at neighboring schools or when the student is in an exchange program with another eligible school for a term or more. The written agreement ensures that the student will receive payment from only one school in a given payment period. (See Chapter 3, Section 5 for more information on consortium agreements.) [[Cost of attendance]] The COA is calculated in the same way as for a student taking classes at only one school. The student's tuition and fees and books and supplies charges at the consortium schools have to be combined into a single charge for a full academic year for purposes of the Pell calculation. If the student is carrying a full-time course load (based on hours taken at both or all schools), the student's tuition and fees and books and supplies costs would be based on actual or average charges, depending on whether the disbursing school uses actual or average charges for its Pell awards. [[Prorating average charges at each school]] Actual charges for a full-time student would simply be the sum of the actual charges at the schools the student is attending under the consortium arrangement. If the disbursing school uses average charges, then the average charges at each of the schools must be prorated and combined. If the student is taking an equal course load at each school, the full-time tuition and fees charges for an academic year at each school can be averaged to determine the tuition and fee cost. However, if the student is taking an unequal course load, the disbursing school must prorate the charges based on the number of hours the student is taking at each school. [[This file contains the example of prorating average charges on page 4-47 in Portable Document Format (PDF). It can be viewed with version 3.0 or greater of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.]] Average charges should also be prorated in this way to find the average full-time charge for a part-time student. Note that because the Pell COA must be the cost for a full-time student for a full year, the school cannot simply use actual charges to determine a part-time student's COA. [[Combined enrollment status]] The enrollment status of a student attending more than one school is based on all the courses taken at the consortium schools that apply to the degree or certificate at the home institution. The disbursing school may have to make some adjustments if the coursework at the different schools is measured in different units. (See the examples on the next page.) [[Finding semester/quarter-hour equivalents]] [[This file contains the examples of combining enrollment status on page 4-48 in Portable Document Format (PDF). It can be viewed with version 3.0 or greater of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.]] It is the responsibility of the school that disburses the Pell award to maintain information on the student's eligibility, how the award was calculated, what money has been disbursed, and any other documentation, even if some of that documentation must come from other schools. COOPERATIVE EDUCATION ------------------------ In a cooperative education program, the school assesses the work to be performed by the student and determines the equivalent academic course load. The student's enrollment status is based on the equivalent academic course load. [[Costs for a co-op program]] If a student has a co-op job for the first term, the tuition and fees for that period can be projected over a full academic year (of at least 30 weeks). For example, a student has a co-op job for the first quarter of the academic year and pays a $50 fee and no tuition. The $50 fee can be projected for each of the three quarters in the academic year for a total tuition and fees amount of $150. This amount is then added to the other COA components to arrive at the total cost for that term. Note that the COA may include employment-related expenses (see Chapter 2, Section 3). The school may also recalculate the student's tuition and fees at the end of the first term rather than using the COA for the period of co-op study for subsequent payment periods. This decision must be consistent with the school's overall policy on recalculating for changes in a student's costs. (See Section 5 of this chapter for more information.) CORRESPONDENCE STUDY ----------------------- Students enrolled in correspondence courses are eligible for aid under SFA Programs only if the courses are part of a program leading to an associate, a bachelor's, or a graduate degree. [[Half-time limit]] An eligible correspondence program must meet the criteria for an eligible program (see Chapter 3). A nonterm correspondence program must require at least 12 hours of preparation per week. A term correspondence program must require 30 hours of preparation per semester hour or 20 hours of preparation per quarter hour during the term. The school determines the length of the correspondence program by preparing a written schedule for the lessons that the student will submit. Students enrolled in programs of correspondence study are considered to be no more than half-time students and thus are limited to no more than half a Scheduled Award. However, a correspondence student may receive more than half a Scheduled Award if the correspondence program includes a required period of residential training or is combined with classroom instruction. Formula 5 is used to calculate payments for a payment period for students enrolled only in a correspondence program (not including residential components). There are two versions of Formula 5; version A is used for nonterm programs, and version B is used for term-based programs. (For a residential component of a correspondence program, the school must use either Formula 3 or Formula 4.) Formula 5 uses the same basic steps as the other formulas discussed in Section 2. [[Formula 5]] Step 1: Determine Enrollment Status As stated above, students enrolled in programs of correspondence study are considered to be no more than half-time students. A student enrolled only in a nonterm correspondence program is always considered to be enrolled half time. For a student enrolled in a term correspondence program, the school must determine whether the student is enrolled half time (6 or more credit hours in a term) or less than half time (less than 6 credit hours in a term). Special rules are used to determine the student's enrollment status when the student is enrolled in a combination of regular and correspondence coursework (see the chart on page 4-52). Step 2: Calculate Cost of Attendance The COA for correspondence study includes only tuition and fees. Room and board costs and allowances for books and supplies and travel may be included only if the student would incur them in fulfilling a required period of residential training. As always, the cost must be the full-time, full academic year cost. If the student's program or period of enrollment is longer or shorter than an academic year, the cost is prorated using the following formula: Hours in program's definition of academic year Costs X ------------------------------- Hours for which costs apply Note that because there are no costs associated with weeks of instructional time in the correspondence COA, the school will have to prorate the cost only if the number of hours in the program is shorter or longer than in an academic year. Step 3: Determine the Annual Award The annual award for a student in a nonterm correspondence program is always taken from the half-time Disbursement Schedule because a correspondence student may not receive more than half a Scheduled Award. For a student in a term correspondence program, the annual award is determined from the half-time Disbursement Schedule or the less-than-half-time Disbursement Schedule, as appropriate. Step 4: Determine the Payment Periods [[Formula 5A]] [[34 CFR 690.66(b)]] For a nonterm correspondence program, there must be at least two equal payment periods. The first payment period is the period in which the student completes the lesser of the first half of the academic year or the program (measured in credit hours). The second payment period is the period in which the student completes the lesser of the second half of the academic year or the program. In addition, the school may not disburse a Pell payment for the first payment period until the student has completed 25% of the work in the academic year or program, whichever is shorter. It may not make the second payment until the student has completed 75% of the work in the academic year or program. [[Formula 5B]] [[34 CFR 690.66(c)(4)]] For a term correspondence program, as for other term-based programs, the payment period is the term. However, the school may not disburse the Pell for a payment period until the student has completed 50% of the lessons or completes 50% of the work for the term, whichever is later. [[Residential training]] If the correspondence program has a required period of residential training, the school must treat the residential training as an additional payment period and determine the payment for that payment period using either Formula 3 or Formula 4. Note that the correspondence portion of the program is still treated as a separate portion of the program that is divided into two equal payment periods. Step 5: Calculate the Payment for a Payment Period [[Formula 5A]] [[34 CFR 690.66(a)(3)]] For nonterm programs, this step is the same as under Formula 4. The school first multiplies the annual award (determined from the half- time Disbursement Schedule, in this case) by the lesser of Weeks of instructional time for a full-time student to complete hours in the program --------------------------------------------- Weeks of instructional time in program's definition of academic year OR Weeks of instructional time for a full-time student to complete hours in the academic year ------------------------------------------------------ Weeks of instructional time in program's definition of academic year OR One (1) [[34 CFR 690.66(a)(4)]] The school then multiplies the result by the following fraction: Hours in a payment period --------------------------------------------------- Hours in program's definition of academic year [[Formula 5B]] [[34 CFR 690.66(c)(3)]] For term programs, this step is the same as under Formula 3. The school multiplies the annual award by the weeks in the term divided by the weeks in the academic year: Weeks of instructional time in the term Annual award X -------------------------------------------- Weeks of instructional time in program's definition of academic year If the resulting amount is more than 50% of the annual award, the school must make the payment in at least two disbursements. A single disbursement may never be more than 50% of the annual award. CORRESPONDENCE STUDY COMBINED WITH REGULAR STUDY ------------------------------------------------------- [[34 CFR 690.8(b)]] If correspondence coursework is to be combined with regular coursework, the correspondence courses must meet the following criteria to be included in the student's enrollment status: - The courses must apply toward the student's degree or certificate or must be remedial work to help the student in his or her course of study. - The courses must be completed during the period required for the student's regular coursework. When combining the number of hours of correspondence work with the number of hours of regular coursework to determine the student's enrollment status for a Pell, the amount of correspondence work counted may not exceed the number of hours of regular coursework in which the student is enrolled. (However, if the student is taking at least a half-time load of correspondence courses, the student would be paid as at least a half-time student, regardless of the hours of regular coursework.) The following chart gives examples of the above rules. The chart assumes that the school defines full-time enrollment as 12 credits per term, making half-time enrollment 6 credits per term. As you can see in the second and third examples, the number of correspondence hours that were counted in the total course load were adjusted so that the correspondence hours never exceed the regular hours taken. Note that in the last example, the student is eligible for payment based on half-time enrollment in correspondence courses, despite the fact that the student only took 2 hours of regular coursework. [[This file contains the chart containing examples of combining correspondence study with regular study on page 4-52 in Portable Document Format (PDF). It can be viewed with version 3.0 or greater of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.]] A student will be paid as a less-than-half-time student for any combination of regular and correspondence work that is less than 6 hours. FOREIGN STUDY --------------- A student can be paid a Pell for study at a foreign school only if the coursework is taken as part of an eligible program at an eligible U.S. school. The foreign study arrangement must be covered by a written agreement between the two schools. Such an arrangement would have to meet the same requirements as a contractual agreement (see the discussion in Chapter 3, Section 5). Students enrolled in study abroad programs with costs of attendance higher than those of the home school may receive a higher Pell award to cover those costs, not to exceed the maximum Pell award. JOB TRAINING (JTPA) PROGRAMS -------------------------------- If a program conducted with funding provided through the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) is offered by an eligible school and meets the definition of an eligible program, eligible students in that program may receive Pell assistance. [[Tuition and fees charges for JTPA programs]] The amount of a Pell for a student in a JTPA program is calculated just as for any other Pell recipient. A school may include a tuition and fees charge in the COA for a Pell recipient only if that charge is actually made to the student and is paid either by the student or by some type of student financial assistance (such as JTPA). The existence of such a tuition and fees charge must be documented in the same way as for any non-JTPA student--for instance, in the school's contract with the student or in the agreement with the JTPA agency. (If the school charges the student for tuition and fees, the school would have to expect the student to pay the charge if the JTPA agency or other source of assistance does not pay on the student's behalf.) On the other hand, if the school does not actually charge the student for tuition and fees (either because it is prohibited from doing so under the JTPA contract, or for other reasons), then no tuition and fees component would exist for the Pell COA. Even if there is no tuition and fees component, the student's COA includes the other components described in Chapter 2. [[Alternate schedule]] Note that if there is no tuition and fees component, the school would be required to use the Alternate Federal Pell Grant Schedule for programs with tuition charges of less than $150 during 1997-98. At the time this handbook went to print, the payment and disbursement schedules for 1998-99 had not been developed. The Department expects to publish the "Dear Colleague" letter containing those schedules in February 1998.2 2 If the maximum Pell is increased to $3,000, the school would be required to use the Alternate Federal Pell Grant Schedule for programs with tuition charges of less than $300. [[Reimbursement contracts]] Certain JTPA contracts operate on a reimbursement basis; that is, the student must fulfill the terms of the contract before JTPA will reimburse the school for tuition and fee costs. If the student does not fulfill the terms of the contract, the school is left with an unpaid tuition and fees charge. The school is not permitted to hold the student liable for the unpaid tuition and fees. Contracts are established this way to offer schools an incentive to properly train and place students enrolled in the training programs. As mentioned previously, if a tuition and fees charge is included in a Pell recipient's COA, the student is liable for any outstanding charges if JTPA does not pay them. Therefore, schools that enter into reimbursement contracts must remove the tuition and fees component from the Pell COA because, under these contracts, schools are prohibited from holding the student liable for outstanding charges. REMEDIAL COURSEWORK ---------------------- A noncredit remedial course is one for which the school allows no credit toward a degree or certificate. A reduced-credit course is one for which the school gives some credit toward the degree or certificate, but not as much as would normally be given based on the workload required by the course. [[Enrollment status]] When figuring enrollment status, the school must include any reduced-credit or noncredit remedial coursework designed to increase the student's ability to pursue his or her program of study. Chapter 2 explains how to include these courses in enrollment status, as well as the limits on the amount of remedial coursework that can be included. [[ESL as an eligible program--34 CFR 668.8(j)]] Schools may pay Pells to students enrolled in ESL programs if such programs consist solely of ESL coursework, meet the definition of an eligible program (see Chapter 3, Section 1), and enroll only undergraduate students who need the program to be able to use already existing knowledge, training, or skills. To apply for a determination of the eligibility of an ESL program, the school should contact the Institutional Participation and Oversight Service. TERMS WITH CLOCK HOURS ------------------------- The amount of a Pell for a student enrolled in clock-hour term programs is calculated under Formula 4, as discussed in Section 2. The payment period for these programs is no longer the academic term. Instead, the payment periods are determined in the same way as for nonterm clock-hour programs. The student must complete all the clock hours in the payment period before receiving any more Pell funds. Previously, if a student did not complete all clock hours scheduled for a term, the subsequent payment period was shortened to realign the payment periods with the terms. As of July 1, 1997, the subsequent payment period was no longer shortened. Instead, each payment period contains the same number of clock hours originally scheduled, even if this means that none of the student's succeeding payment periods coincide with the terms. [[This file contains the graphic on page 4-55 in Portable Document Format (PDF). It can be viewed with version 3.0 or greater of the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software.]] |