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A nationwide change in how universities monitor students for satisfactory academic progress will require those advancing slowly to submit two appeals to stay in school: One to their academic deans and one to their financial aid offices.
Currently at the University of Maine, a student whose GPA falls below the minimum for his or her year of study — a 1.5 for a first-year student, 1.7 for a second-year, 1.8 for a third-year and 1.9 for a fourth-or-more-year — must appeal to his or her academic dean to stay in school.
If the dean and student agree on terms of what will be done to raise the GPA, the financial aid office is told the student may still receive aid.
After this semester’s grades are posted, academic deans and the financial aid office will begin working together to determine if a student can both stay in school and remain eligible for financial aid.
“Satisfactory academic progress is really saying broadly that a student must be working toward a degree with timely progress, with good grades, so at the end of the four or six years, they can graduate,” said Peggy Crawford, director of Financial Aid at UMaine.
Crawford said the change in federal SAP guidelines is “making them more prescriptive” by synthesizing old requirements with new ones.
Students will have to earn the minimum GPA for their year and finish a minimum percentage of their classes, but they will not be allowed to attempt more than 150 percent of credits needed to graduate from their programs without earning a degree.
“You can’t continue to get financial aid forever,” Crawford said, explaining the third requirement. She offered an example of a full-time student taking six years to earn a four-year degree but failing to graduate.
“The federal government is really asking institutions to bring [academics and financial aid] together,” said Virginia Nees-Hatlen, associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “Are students making good use of financial aid, making good progress toward a degree?”
Nees-Hatlen said it may seem “like punishment” to a student who loses financial aid eligibility and cannot take classes. She added the SAP process may be “more painful to students temporarily but may be better for them in the long run.”
“The goal of it is to help them graduate,” she said. “If we don’t take a time out … they dig a deeper and deeper hole, and they don’t graduate.”
A student who fails to meet SAP guidelines will receive two letters over the summer — one from an associate dean and one from financial aid. They must respond to the letters with separate appeals, creating more work for students and administrators.
“I don’t think it’ll be as bad as it may sound,” said Alan Kezis, associate dean of the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture. “I don’t think you’ll see a dramatic number of students doing anything different.”
Associate deans and representatives from financial aid form the appellate board. Kezis said this will create “a lot more work on everyone’s part” but will ensure board members understand the intricacies of students’ situations.
Crawford said the new SAP guidelines were formed, mostly, with for-profit institutions in mind.
“Students have been receiving financial aid without receiving anything from that,” she said. “Their loan debt is increasing without achieving a degree.”
It is possible for some students to fall into a gap between the two appeals; however, she said not all of the details have been worked out and students will receive explicit instructions if they fail to meet SAP guidelines.
Gianna Marrs, senior associate director for Financial Aid at UMaine, said students in danger of failing to meet SAP guidelines will be given benchmarks to track progress. Their transcripts will be re-evaluated at the end of enrollment periods to determine whether they have recovered or are still not meeting standards.
“There are some students who just miss the benchmark and in one year, they can pull themselves up,” Marrs said. “My guess is we would always allow an appeal.”
