Many students receive some form of federal financial aid. If you receive federal financial aid, you should know that there are specific requirements that must be met to keep your financial aid. The relevant requirements are based on GPA and the percent of courses successfully completed. Here are some facts that you should be aware of concerning federal financial aid.

1. The first time a student falls below one or both of the requirements, the student will receive a financial aid warning.
2. Should the student not meet the requirements after the next semester, the student will lose his/her financial aid.
3. The student can appeal the loss of financial aid for good reason and with a convincing plan for meeting the requirements.
4. Students need to successfully complete 67% of their classes. An F grade, a withdrawal from a course, or an incomplete in a course will count as an unsuccessful completion.
5. The GPA required can vary from university to university. The required GPA will also vary upon the credit hours the student has accepted. Typically freshman and sophomore students have GPA requirements a little below 2.00. After the sophomore year the GPA requirement will be 2.00.
6. Should a student lose his/her financial aid, it can be restored later if the requirements are met.

Attached is a description of how you can determine your financial aid eligibility. Remember that these requirements apply to federal financial aid. Other forms of financial aid may have different requirements.

Determining Satisfactory Progress

STEP 1: Compare your GPA to the required GPA. The required GPA will depend upon the credit hours attempted. See the example.
STEP 2: Determine the percent of classes completed. This is done by dividing the total credit hours earned by the total credit hours attempted. This percentage needs to be at least 67%. A grade of F, W, or I (Incomplete) is not a satisfactory completed course. See the example.
STEP 3: Determine what the projected GPA will be after the next semester. See the example.
STEP 4: Determine the projected percent completion after the next semester.

Sample Calculations

Fall Semester:

GPA = 24/13 = 1.85

Here is additional information for the above example:
STEP 1: The minimum required GPA for this student’s credit hour status is 1.6 Therefore the student’s GPA is sufficient.
STEP 2: The student successfully completed 13 credit hours. Calculus and Chemistry were not successfully completed. The student attempted 17 credit hours. The successful completion percentage is: successful completion = 9/17 = 53%.

Spring Semester:

GPA = 46/17 = 2.71

STEP 3: To determine the cumulative GPA, adjust the previous credit hours and quality points for any courses that are repeated under a forgiveness policy. In this example, Calculus I will be repeated. Therefore the completed credit hours from the fall semester are reduced as 13-4=9. Likewise the quality points are adjusted. Since there were no quality points from the F in Calculus, no adjustment is needed. The cumulative GPA is calculated as:

GPA = 70/26 = 2.69

STEP 4: The attempted hours are determined by adding all of the attempted hours from each semester. In this case the attempted hours are:

In the same way determine the hours successfully completed:

The percentage of successfully completed hours is then determined.
Percent successful/completed = 26/34 = 76%..