Financial Aid Polices
SAP (Satisfactory Academic Progress)
Please review the full Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy located here.
You are assigned a Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) status at the beginning of each academic year. Each quarter, we will review your grades, and you SAP status is adjusted accordingly. Below is a list of possible SAP statuses and their meaning:
• Eligible – You have passed all measurements for the financial aid funding you are receiving, and you are eligible for financial aid each quarter.
• Warning – Any student who fails to complete the minimum number of credits required for satisfactory progress or does not maintain a minimum 2.0 quarterly GPA will be placed on a warning status for the following quarter.. Please review page 3 of the Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy for more information. A student must maintain satisfactory progress during Warning Status. A student who does not meet the minimum satisfactory progress for the following quarter will have future funding cancelled. A student who reinstates to a satisfactory status will be considered in good standing the following quarter.
• Suspension – You failed one or more of the measurements and are no longer eligible for your financial aid funding. Future aid for which you have lost eligibility is canceled and immediately awarded to another student. While on Suspension Status, you have the right to appeal if you can demonstrate unusual circumstances that contributed to your inability to meet measurements—See Re-Establishing your Eligibility below.
• Probation – You were on Suspension Status, but successfully appealed and are now eligible to receive financial aid funding under more restrictive Terms and Conditions. At the very least, all students on Probation must complete 100% of their attempted courses each quarter and earn a 2.0 quarterly GPA.
Probation with a Academic Plan – You were on Suspension Status, but successfully appealed and are now eligible to receive financial aid funding under more restrictive Terms and Conditions for more than one term, and must reach SAP standards by the end of the approved Plan. At the very least, all students on Probation with an Academic Plam must complete 100% of their attempted courses each quarter and earn a 2.0 quarterly GPA for a specified number of terms, and must reach 67% completion rate and 2.0 cumulative GPA by the end of the Plan..
• Repayment – We have determined that you owe money to a financial aid program, Everett Community College, or another college/university and you are not eligible to receive any future financial aid disbursements until the money is repaid. Future aid is canceled and immediately awarded to another student. It is your responsibility to let the Financial Aid Office know when you have made your payment and to provide receipts, without this information we will not proceed with reviewing your request for financial aid reinstatement. You can notify us by including your proof of repayment in your appeal or an email to fin_aid@everettcc.edu
• Maximum Timeframe – You have exceeded the allowable number of credits attempted for your program of study, or cannot mathematically complete the program within the allowable timeframe and are no longer eligible to receive financial aid. If you have reached the Maximum Timeframe, you have the right to appeal if you can demonstrate unusual circumstances that contributed to your inability to meet this measurement. You are also encouraged to meet with your program advisor to review your remaining program requirements, and who can update your degree plan in Starfish—See Re-Establishing your Eligibility below.
• Satisfactory Academic Progress Appeal for Reinstatement Form
• Students have the right to appeal their Satisfactory Academic Progress Status for Suspension, and Maximum Timeframe, unless otherwise stated. Students must prove an unusual circumstance that prevented them from achieving the required measurements. We consider an unusual circumstance one that a normal student would not face while in school
• The Financial Aid Appeal for Reinstatement is an online form, submitted directly to the Financial Aid Office. Appeal’s are collected and reviewed in writing only, and the Apppeals Committee will not meet with a student in person in order to make a decision, to avoid any bias in the decision making process. All appeals are handled in writing to avoid emotional bias.Depending on when the appeal is submitted, decisions are typically two weeks, but longer wait times may occur during peak processing time. We cannot defer tuition payment on the basis of waiting for an appeal decision and you will need to make payment arrangments with the Cashiers Office to avoing being dropped for non-payment.
• If a student’s appeal is approved, they will be placed into Probation status and given new terms and conditions to follow to maintain eligibility to receive financial aid. Students who receive Probation status only regain their eligibility for funding, the Financial Aid Office makes no guarantees to return any amount of funding the student was offered prior to their Suspension or Maximum Timeframe status. Students will remain on Probation status until they meet the terms listed on their Appeal Approved with Probation (or Probation with Academic Plan) Letter or until they meet the minimum Satisfactory Academic Progress requirements.
• Students may appeal the decision to deny a Financial Aid Appeal , only if they present new information that was not included in the original appeal, and must make the request in writing to the Director of Financial Aid by sending an email with the subject line: "Secondary Appeal" to fin_aid@everettcc.edu. All appeals are handled in writing to avoid emotional bias.
Mutilple Degrees
- Students may only receive financial aid for one degree plan at a time. Stackable or embedded certifcates that lead to the complete of the student's declared AA program is allowed. However, only one Direct Transfer Degree is allowed. Students wishing to change their major/program before completing the program that their funding was based on must submit a Program Change Appeal to the Financial Aid Office. The online form includes the link to request Enrollment Services to officialy update the student's program at the college. While most requests for program change will be approved, you should be aware that the number of quarters you can receive Washington state financial aid in your lifetime is limited to 15 quarters. The Pell Grant lifetime limit is equivlnt to 6 full-time years or 600% usage. If you pursue mutiple undergraduate programs (cerificates and degree) you could run out of financial aid before you can finish a BA or BAS level degree. Please note: you may choose to notify the Financial Aid Office you wish to decline any or part of your remaining Pell Grant % usage and/or your state financial aid offer to "bank" your remaining quarters of usage so that you may have enough Pell Grant and/or state aid for completion of your BA or BAS degree. Another option to regain state aid quarters is to repay the Pell Grant to the Department of Education or repay some or all of the Washington College Grant to the Washington Student Achievement Council. Contact the Financial Aid Office for more information.
Return of Financial Aid Funds
Students earn their federal financial aid every day that they attend class. In good faith, the college disburses that aid to students at the start of the quarter so that students can purchase books and supplies as well as pay tuition and fees. When a student receives financial aid funding but then stops attending or withdraws from all of their classes, they have stopped earning their financial aid funding, and must return some or all of it to the US Department of Education. This process is called Return of Title IV.
The Financial Aid Office determines your last date of attendance and completes a complex series of equations to determine how much financial aid you are eligible for based on the total number of days you attended and how much aid you received. The Return of Title IV calculation has two parts, the School Return Portion and the Student Return Portion.
Based on the Return of Title IV equation, the college may be required to return a portion of the financial aid funding you received and is currently being used to pay your owing balance at Everett Community College. When the college returns this funding to the US Department of Education, we immediately bill you, the student, for the generated owing balance, and that balance is due immediately.
Likewise, based on the Return of Title IV equation, you as the student my be required to return funds directly to the US Department of Education as well. In general, and as a courtesy, for 45 days, the college can receive payment for what you owe back to the US Department of Education, and you can make that payment directly to the Cashier’s Office and then bring in the payment receipt to the Financial Aid Office—do not forget to bring in the receipt, as without it, we cannot verify payment. After the 45 days, the debt you owe is remanded to the US Department of Education, and can only be paid directly to them. You can make a payment of your US Department of Education owing balance at (draft -review with Elvira).
Students who owe a debt to the US Department of Education are not eligible to receive financial aid at Everett Community College or any other college/university until that payment is made in full. The US Department of Education can and will also garnish your wages and tax return refunds to pay this owing balance, and citizens with a debt may not be able to get federal government jobs until the debt is paid in full.
If you need to drop all of your courses, it’s important that you visit the Financial Aid Office so we can explain the full ramification to your continued financial aid eligibility.
Washington State Aid Repayment
If a student does not attend, withdraws prior to the start of a term, reduces enrollment levels prior to the start of the term or fails to commence attendance in all classes that their enrollment level/award amount is based on, the college must bill the student and report the repayment to WSAC.
If a student attends at least one day of each of the classes their state aid was calculated on and then witthdraws, they are considered to have earned the aid that they received and the student is held to Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy requiements, and will be placed in Suspension for future terms. No state aid refunds or post-withdrawal refunds will be issued to the student once they have withdrawn.
Payments Cannot be Made to Students for a Current Term After They Withdraw.
If students withdraw for a term without earning at least 3 credits, no additional WCG or CBS payments may be made to the students for that term on or after a student’s official withdrawal date. Note: State policy differs from the Federal policy on this issue of post-withdrawal disbursements.
Student Repayments
Repayment is a student responsibility if it is due to incorrect information provided by the student, failure to complete the term or failure to commence attendance in all classes on which their enrollment level/award amount is based. If a grant recipient leaves an institution during an academic term in which he or she receives WCG, the student may be required to repay WCG funds.
Repeating Classes with Financial Aid
Students may repeat a failed or withdrawn course a maximum number of three times. After the third attempt, the student will need to submit appeal to Enrollment Services. Once the class is passed, a student may only attempt the course one additional time while receiving financial aid funding, regardless of whether the student passes, fails, earns too low of a GPA, or withdraws from the course.
If the class is a required class for the student’s program of study, and the student has exhausted their eligibility attempts while on financial aid, the student’s financial aid enrollment level aid will be recalculated without the repeat credits as long as the student can complete their program requirements within remaining timeframe.
Students should be aware that repeating the same class over and over again could result in triggering the Financial Aid Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy, especially the status Suspension, or Maximum Timeframe.