Changes in Enrollment

Dropping a Course

Students must be enrolled at least half-time (6 hours undergraduate and 5 hours graduate) to receive financial aid. If you reduce the number of credit hours for which you are registered, you may be required to repay financial aid already received. Dropping a course could also affect your Satisfactory Academic Progress and suspend future financial aid. Before dropping a course, you should consult your Academic Advisor and Financial Aid Administrator.

Repeating a Course

Federal regulations limit the number of times a student may repeat a previously passed course and receive financial aid for that course. Ineligible repeated courses will be excluded from counting in the student’s enrollment status for financial aid purposes.

  • A student may receive aid when repeating a course that was previously failed, regardless of the number of times the course was attempted and failed.
  • A student may receive aid to repeat a previously passed course one additional time.
  • Once a student has completed any course twice with a passing grade, he/she is no longer eligible to receive aid for that course.
  • If a student retakes a course that is not aid eligible, a recalculation of aid is performed to exclude the credits for the repeated course.
  • This policy applies whether or not the student received aid for earlier enrollments in the course. All repeated courses affect financial aid Satisfactory Academic Progress. A repeated course, along with the original attempt, must be counted as attempted credit hours.

Withdrawal & Return of Funds

  • An official withdrawal is obtained through the Registrar’s office and requires authorization from various departments.
  • An unofficial withdrawal occurs when a student receives an “F” for all classes attempted for the term.
  • A medical withdrawal is obtained through the Registrar’s office and requires medical documentation.

The Office of Student Financial Aid is required, by federal statute, to review the financial aid profile of any student who officially, unofficially, or medically withdraws from the university within the first 60% of the semester for an adjustment to their financial aid. This adjustment is based on a percentage which represents the amount of time completed in the semester and is applied to the total institutional charges assessed to the student as well as Title IV financial aid applied to the student’s account.

The percentage is determined by dividing the total number of calendar days in the semester not completed by the student, by the total calendar days in the semester. The total calendar days in the semester begins with the first day of classes and ends with the last scheduled day of exams, includes weekends, but excludes scheduled breaks of five or more days and days that the student was on an approved leave of absence. No adjustment will be made to a student’s financial aid if the percentage representing the amount of time remaining in the semester is less than 40%.

The Financial Aid Office will retract funds from the student’s Cashier account to return funds to the appropriate Title IV program in the following order: Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, Direct Subsidized Stafford Loan, Direct Graduate PLUS, and Direct Parent PLUS. If unearned funds remain to be returned after repayment of all outstanding loans, it must be subtracted from Federal Pell Grant and Federal Supplemental Opportunity Grant. There will be a letter sent to the student’s address of record notifying them of the adjustment and any subsequent balance due.

The university will return funds to the Title IV programs on the student’s behalf as well as overpayments received by the university. It is the responsibility of the student to pay the university these overpayments within 90 days from the date of the withdrawal. Failure to repay the university will jeopardize eligibility for future Title IV funding at East Carolina University as well as other institutions of higher education. Students must also complete Exit Loan Counseling. This is a federal requirement of all students who are graduating from ECU, withdrawing, or have dropped below half-time status.