HERE’S what may happen if you decide to drop a course...

SAFE! If you’re still enrolled at 12 credits or more, no change to your aid or tuition since you’re still considered a full-time student.

SAFE! A drop from an enrollment total of 12 or greater credits to a new level of 6 to 11 credits will mean a lower tuition, but no change in aid eligibility. This is true once the first week of the semester has passed. Otherwise, you’re classified as being enrolled for only part-time credits and therefore, charged at the part-time tuition rate.

CAUTION! If you’re enrolled at part-time status up through the first week of the semester, then your charges will reflect part-time enrollment and not full-time enrollment. This also means that only aid which you qualify for as a part-time student can remain with you. All full-time student aid eligibility is forfeited.

LOOK OUT, AN AID ADJUSTMENT MAY BE NECESSARY! If you drop course credit below six credits, Uncle Sam now considers you as enrolled at less than half-time status. Grants, scholarships, work-study eligibility and loans are all affected.

LOOK OUT AGAIN, AN AID ADJUSTMENT MAY BE COMING YOUR WAY! All credits are dropped for the semester? The same outcome will occur as if you dropped below half-time status. All aid eligibility is affected.

Here's more (detailed) information on what happens when you drop a class...

An adjustment to financial aid eligibility can occur when a student makes a change in the number of enrolled credits up through 60% of the semester. This period of time constitutes approximately the first eight weeks of the semester. The change in enrollment status also applies to mini-mester course work, as long as the course work is part of the student’s initial semester registration. Mini-mester course credits that are dropped after the 60% semester refund time period are not subject to financial aid adjustments. The same thing is true, however, for adding course work beyond the first week of the semester. Any new course work and the associated charges aren’t included in financial aid eligibility. The switching of course credit, the exchanging of one four-credit course for another, isn’t affected. This latter instance is just a "swap" in course work with no change in the aggregate number of registered credits and the associated tuition charges that have been established at start of the semester.

When a student withdraws from a course, a tuition credit to their charges will be issued to the student for the adjustment made in course load. This occurs for students dropping from full-time status (12 credit or more) to part-time status or when a student is reducing the number of credit hours as a part-time student. The amount of tuition credit is contingent on the date that the withdrawal is initiated with the Register’s Office. If no date is established, then the mid-point of the semester is used to determine a refund amount.

During the first 60% of the semester, a refund calculation is made by the Bursar’s Office. If the adjustment in course load is made prior to the end of the first week of the semester, the semester charges are based only on the number of credits the student is still enrolled for up through the close of the first week of the semester. If all course work is dropped, then there is no tuition charge, although the Bursar may apply a "withdraw fee" to the bill. If the student drops from full-time to part-time during the first week, then the tuition charge is based only on the total number of credit hours enrolled. After the first week, each day corresponds to a decreasing percentage refund, starting at 93%, because this is how much of the semester still remains through the end of the exam week. So for example, B-W allows a 100% refund of tuition up through week one of the semester. If the student drops a course on the 8^th day of the semester, the refund is at 93%, the ninth day is at 92%, and so forth until on the 60^th day of the semester the refund is reduced to 40%. Beginning on the 61^st day there is no tuition refund credit for changes in course load.

Just as there is a change in tuition charges when a course is dropped, the same occurs with financial aid eligibility. The same refund percentage as described above applies to financial aid that has been credited. Any eligibility for loans not yet formally approved by the guarantee agency doesn’t count in this refund calculation. Instead, all loan eligibility is lost for unapproved loan assistance. The percentage of financial aid adjustment only applies for "earned" aid. Aid that hasn’t been formally approved is ignored on the refund formula. This particularly affects loan assistance that hasn’t been taken. Here, the student could lose 100% of their loan eligibility for a loan not approved plus have the refund percentage, say 72%, be applied against all other "earned" aid. There’s one exception to this financial aid refund application and that involves work-study eligibility. Work-study assistance is entirely excluded from the refund determination. This applies to whether earnings have been made or not.

In the event that a student has entirely withdrawn from coursework for the semester, there is also an adjustment for room and board charges that have been assessed the student.As before, the same 60-day percentage schedule would apply in determining financial aid eligibility. The Bursar’s Office, however, would determine the amount of credit to the billing statement that would be applied against housing and board charges. It could be the same percent or a different figure entirely, since board consumption varies from student to student, and housing occupation isn’t subject to day-to-day adjustments. So while there may be an adjustment in financial aid eligibility, a different credit adjustment to the billing statement may be made by the Bursar’s Office.

Finally, these adjustment in aid eligibility generally occur in two situations: (1) when a student withdraws entirely from classes, and (2) when a student’s course load drops from full or part-time to less than half-time (fewer than six credit hours). In the first instance, which affects, perhaps 30 students per semester, the student is completely withdrawing from the College. In the second instance, the student has reduced their status from full or part-time to a different form of status, that of being less than a half-time student. In this latter situation, the federal government no longer considers the person as principally attending college. College is more tangential to the person’s way of life. Therefore, eligibility for aid is calculated similar to as if the student had withdrawn from the College. There are fewer than five students that are impacted this way each semester. The financial aid consequences for dropping to five hours or fewer can be great particularly if the student didn’t receive loan approval prior to dropping credit hours.

Now, let’s look at an example. John Buford is enrolled at B-W as a full-time resident in the Liberal Arts Program. He decides to drop all of his courses on the 23^rd day of the semester.This corresponds to a 77% refund. What happens to his charges and his aid?

Here’s what John qualified for as a full-time resident student this semester:

             Both CWS and PLUS loan are removed from any financial aid refund adjustment.CWS is always excluded from refund formulas and the PLUS Loan is excluded since it had not been formally approved by the guarantee agency.  Note that approval by the Financial Aid Office doesn’t constitute guarantee agency approval. The latter comes after the aid office processes the loan application.The same is true for Stafford Loans.

            John’s charges for fall semester were $10,400 ($7,670 tuition and $2,730 room and board).  Seventy-seven percent of $10,400 is $8,008. This is the amount of adjustment in tuition and room and board charges that will be made to John’s billing statement with the College.However, John will also have a change in his aid eligibility.  From the list of different aid shown above, a total of $8,890 has been credited to John’s billing statement along with a $610 cash payment.  This amounts to $9,500 in combined aid and payments made.  Of this amount, a total of $8,008 in aid is returned, leaving $882 in gift aid along with his payment of $610 to be applied to his new tuition and room and board balance of $2,392 ($10,400 in charges minus 77% refund of $8,008).  His remaining would now be $900, which is the same balance he had before he dropped all of his classes ($10,400 minus $9,500 in combined aid and payments).