How to Keep Your Grants & Loans

Make satisfactory academic progress

We review your academic progress at least once a year. It’s determined by your enrollment in all previous terms (including those in which you withdrew completely from classes), whether or not you received financial aid.

If you are a nondegree student who is eligible for financial aid, you are expected to meet the same standards as an undergraduate student in order to keep your aid.

You must meet the following requirements to make satisfactory academic progress:

You must maintain a cumulative program GPA of at least the minimum required by your academic program. 

Transfer hours from outside of the IU system do not count toward the program GPA. Exception: courses from Purdue are used in the calculation of program GPA for students enrolled in Purdue degree programs.

In order to meet SAP requirements, you have to successfully complete no less than 67 percent of your total attempted credit hours.

Your completion rate is determined by dividing the hours you successfully completed by the total number of hours you attempted. For SAP purposes, the calculation goes to 3 decimal points and is then rounded.  For example, if you take 9 credit hours but successfully complete only 6, that is a completion rate of 66.667% and you would not be meeting the 67% requirement.

Hours successfully completed include those with grades of A, B, C, D, P, R, and S.

If you received a grade of W, F, FX, or I in a course, you did not successfully complete that course. Hours from these courses are included in the total hours attempted in the formula above.

Attempted hours may include:

  • Hours accepted for transfer
  • Repeated coursework
  • Coursework in which a student is granted academic forgiveness
  • Consortium coursework
  • Courses that are noncredit, remedial, or enrichment
  • English as a Second Language courses
  • Coursework completed in the Passport Program between IU Columbus and Ivy Tech Community College of Columbus

Transfer credit hours are counted as both attempted and completed. Audited courses are not included in the calculation.

You must complete your degree requirements within 150 percent of the published credit hour length of your academic program. For example, if your degree requires 120 credit hours for completion, you must be on track to complete your degree requirements before attempting 180 credit hours (120 credit hours X 150 percent).

We are required to select students at the point in time we determine they cannot meet the 150 percent requirement. We begin to select students when they have attempted 125 percent of the published credit hour length of their academic program. For example, if your degree requires 120 credit hours for completion, you will be selected for SAP when you have attempted 150 credit hours (120 credit hours X 125 percent).

Changes in major, pursuit of a second degree, and transfer hours may impact eligibility based on number of hours attempted.

How we monitor your academic progress

Your eligibility will be reviewed on an annual basis. Each spring after final grades have been posted, the Office of Student Financial Services reviews each undergraduate and graduate financial aid application for satisfactory academic progress.  If you do not have a FAFSA on file at the time of our annual review, you will be evaluated after you submit your FAFSA or after you apply for a private loan. You may also request a SAP review at the end of any semester you’re enrolled.

Students enrolled in eligible certificate programs that are shorter than 24 credit hours are monitored for SAP compliance at the end of each payment period. For these programs, we review after fall semester before spring aid is disbursed,  after spring semester before summer aid is awarded, and after summer before fall aid is awarded.

What happens if you don’t make satisfactory academic progress?

You must meet all of the SAP requirements listed above to be eligible to receive financial aid. We’ll notify you if you’re making unsatisfactory academic progress. You can also see your status in One.IU. If you’ve been flagged as making unsatisfactory progress for more than one requirement, you will see multiple items on your To Do List. If you’ve been flagged as making unsatisfactory progress, you can file an academic progress appeal

Options for reinstating your financial aid

If you lose your aid eligibility due to lack of satisfactory academic progress, there are two options available to you: Improve your status or submit an appeal.

Improve your status

You can successfully complete coursework that improves your overall program GPA and/or completion rate to meet the SAP requirements. We will evaluate your progress on an annual basis. However, you may request a SAP review at the end of any semester of enrollment.

If you’re nearing the 150 percent maximum timeframe, you can’t improve your status by continuing to take classes. In this case, you must submit an appeal.

Submit an appeal

You can submit an appeal to the Office of Student Financial Services SAP committee. Information on how to submit an appeal is included in the SAP notification email and can also be found online here.