Unusual Enrollment History Policy
The Department of Education is required to maintain practices that protect federal student aid dollars from the risk of fraud or misuse. As part of this effort a process was implemented in the 2013-2014 academic year that flagged the FAFSA record of student aid applicants who had attended (and received federal student aid) at multiple schools within a short period of time. The Department of Education requires that institutions of higher learning perform additional review of student records where a flag exists to determine their eligibility for funding.
The Department of Education, and Regent University, recognize that attendance to multiple schools over a short period of time is frequently the result of life circumstances and not an attempt to misuse funding available to students under the federal student aid programs. Regent University considers the existence of a multiple school attendance flag as an opportunity to counsel our student aid applicants, while meeting our compliance obligations set in place by federal law.
The simplest way to resolve an unusual enrollment history FAFSA flag is to provide official transcripts from each prior school the student has attended in the last four academic years. As long as the student’s transcripts demonstrate academic credit is consistently earned, the Student Financial Aid Office can finalize the flag review.
Students should be careful to include all schools attended within the review period. A list can be obtained by following the instructions below.
- Go to www.studentaid.gov and login
- Select View Enrollment History (appears under “My Info”)
- Review Program Enrollment History
The primary purpose of federal student aid is to assist students with the cost of earning academic credit. When a FAFSA applicant’s record shows a pattern of receiving federal student aid with no resulting academic credit earned the applicant is no longer eligible for continued access to federal student aid funding. Regent university policy will generally allow the student to continue to access any institutionally provided financial assistance they otherwise qualify to receive, however access to taxpayer funded assistance through the federal student aid program is not permitted.
Students may regain eligibility by successfully earning college credit and providing an updated academic transcript.
Regent University recognizes that life circumstances can, in extreme cases, disrupt a student’s ability to achieve successful academic outcomes. Students may appeal their Unusual Enrollment History status using the appeal form below.
Instructions: Carefully review the instructions within the appeal as well as your academic records across your prior schools. Extenuating circumstances should be carefully summarized with sufficient detail to correlate the life circumstances with the academic enrollment period. Documentation of the circumstances is required and must meet the Acceptable Third Party Documentation policy outlined here.
