Withdrawal, Refunds, and Repayments

General Information

If you receive federal Pell grant funds, you must finalize your registration by the last day to receive a 100% refund. The academic calendar provides the exact date for each quarter. This is called our Census Date. Up until the census date we adjust your Pell grant to match your registration level. Federal rules do not allow us to adjust your Pell grant after the census date.

Adding classes after the Census Date

We cannot increase your Pell grant to reflect your actual registration after the census date.

Withdrawing from classes on or before the Census Date

If you reduce your credits below the number we offered you aid for, we must adjust your Pell grant down to reflect your reduced registration.

• You may owe a repayment if we already disbursed Pell grant funds to you, and we notify you by mail (usually during the third week of the quarter).
• If dropping a class/es results in a refund, the refund is returned to the Pell grant program, and may reduce the amount you owe.

The rule that requires us to adjust your Pell grant on or before the census date due to a change in registration does not apply to other grant programs. However, if you complete less credits than what your award was based on, we must apply the rules related to Satisfactory Academic Progress, which may result in cancellation of future aid. You may talk with a financial aid advisor about adjusting and repaying other types of financial aid to avoid the risk of losing aid for future quarters.

Refunds

Unless you withdraw from all your classes, financial aid students can generally expect to receive a refund of aid after a partial withdrawal.

Repayments

If you fail to complete any credits for a quarter in which you received financial aid, and you did not attend class for at least 60% of the quarter, you may owe a repayment on some or all of the aid you received. Instructors are required to report the Last Date of Attendance (LDA) for all students who receive a failing grade or stopped attending class. We use this date to determine if you owe a repayment, and the amount of the repayment. This repayment requirement applies to all federal and state financial aid with the exception of Direct Student Loans. For detailed information on the requirements related to repayments, see Withdrawing from Classes in the Financial Aid Forms Library, under “General Information and Resources”.

Notification

We calculate repayments throughout the quarter as we become aware of withdrawals, and at the end of the quarter after grades are posted. We send you a letter, which notifies you of the requirement to repay financial aid funds. You will receive a letter(s) from us notifying of any money you may owe to the U.S. Department of Education, WA State, or Bellevue College.