Award Amount Reduction

• If you have federal student loans at the beginning of the academic year based on full-time enrollment and your drop a class or two you won't lose your financial aid. Your school will likely adjust your award amount accordingly. This usually means that your school will reduce your total original award amount for the academic term by the cost of the tuition for the classes you dropped. For example, if your original loan award was $12,000 and you dropped two classes with tuition and fees totaling $2,000, your school deducts the costs of those classes you are no longer taking from your award total. This decreases your new award total to $10,000.
  
  

Less than Part-Time

• If you drop your classes to less than part-time, you will not lose your financial aid but your repayment grace period will begin. Federal student loans have a six-month repayment grace period. This grace period begins when you drop out of school completely, decrease your enrollment to less than part-time or graduate. This means you must begin making your student loan payments six months after the day you dropped your enrollment to less than part-time.
  
  

Pell Grants

• Federal Pell grants do not have minimum enrollment requirements. The Department of Education determines the award amounts for these grants based not only on your financial need but also on the number of credit hours you were planning to attend when you applied for the grant and the cost of attending those classes. If you drop classes, then your school recalculates your Pell award and you will have to pay back a portion of your Pell award amount.
  
  

Academic Progress

• The U.S. Department of Education allows schools to determine their specific Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) standards. These are the standards students must meet to continue to receive federal student aid. Dropping classes during your school's add/drop period does not affect your financial aid. If you wait to drop your classes past this time and receive a "W" indicating a withdrawal or an "I" indicating incomplete, your school can choose to put you on academic probation for failing to meet their SAP standards. This can lead to your losing your future federal financial aid benefits.