Refund Process for Students Receiving Federal Title IV Financial Aid (R2T4)

(Federal Pell Grant, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant)

The US Department of Education specifies how Chattahoochee Technical College (CTC) must determine the amount of Title IV program assistance that you earn if you withdraw from school or stop attending all of your courses for a term. The Title IV programs that are covered by this law are: Federal Pell Grants and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOGs).

When you withdraw or stop attending all courses during your period of enrollment (term in which you are registered), the amount of Title IV program assistance that you have earned up to that point is determined by a specific formula. If you received (or CTC received on your behalf) less assistance than the amount that you earned, you may be able to receive those additional funds. If you received more assistance than you earned, the excess funds must be returned by the school and/or you.

The amount of assistance that you have earned is determined on a prorata basis. For example, if you completed 30 percent of your period of enrollment, you earn 30 percent of the assistance you were originally scheduled to receive. Once you have completed more than 60 percent of the period of enrollment, you earn all the assistance that you were scheduled to receive for that period.

If you did not receive all of the funds that you earned, you may be due a post-withdrawal disbursement. CTC will automatically use all or a portion of your post-withdrawal disbursement of grant funds for tuition and fees. The school needs your permission to use the post-withdrawal grant disbursement for all other school charges (fees not automatically paid with financial aid funds). If you do not give your permission, you will be offered the funds. However, it may be in your best interest to allow CTC to utilize the funds to reduce your debt at the school. There may be some Title IV funds that you were scheduled to receive that cannot be disbursed to you once you withdraw or stop attending because of other eligibility requirements.

If you (or CTC on your behalf) receive excess Title IV program funds that must be returned, your school must return a portion of the excess equal to the lesser of:

• your institutional charges multiplied by the unearned percentage of your funds, or
• the entire amount of excess funds.

CTC must return this amount even if it didn’t keep this amount of your Title IV program funds. CTC will then charge you for the Title IV program funds that the school was required to return.

If CTC is not required to return all of the excess funds, you must return the remaining amount.

Any amount of unearned grant funds that you must return is called an overpayment. The maximum amount of a grant overpayment that you must repay is half of the grant funds you received or were scheduled to receive. You must make arrangements with Chattahoochee Tech or the Department of Education to return the unearned grant funds.

The requirements for Title IV program funds when you withdraw or stop attending all courses for a term are separate from the Institutional Policy [see Refund Policy (Institutional) section]. Therefore, you may still owe funds to the school to cover unpaid institutional charges. Chattahoochee Tech will charge you for any Title IV program funds that the school was required to return.

Any student who unofficially withdraws (stops attending class) will have his or her aid recalculated based on this policy and may be required to return unearned funds to the college. As well, these types of withdrawals will negatively affect a student's SAP.

If you have questions about your Title IV program funds, please contact the Financial Aid Office. You may also contact the Federal Student Aid Information Center at 1-800-4-FEDAID (1-800-433-3243). TTY users may call 1-800-730-8913.