Award Notification

Delivery of Aid

After the financial aid award is accepted and all requirements have been completed, available financial aid will be credited to pay tuition and other billed charges for enrolled students each term. Financial aid that exceeds billed charges are then delivered to the student by the Portland State University Student Financial Services Office according to the preference that the student has established with the University. See www.pdx.edu/student-financial/hello-students for more information.

Federal Work-Study is earned on a monthly basis and paychecks are issued at the end of each month by the University’s payroll office. Students may authorize direct deposit of their Federal Work-Study pay to their bank account, or pick up their paychecks from the cashier window in Neuberger Hall lobby. More information can be found at  www.pdx.edu/finaid/apply.

Aid Disbursement Policy

Financial aid can be disbursed to a student’s Portland State University revolving charge account up to ten days prior to the start of each term. Aid will only disburse at this time if a student’s enrollment level matches their award level for the term, and there are no outstanding requirements. Our ability to disburse aid prior to the beginning of a term means that we must have a “census date” that corresponds to a student’s eligibility for grants and scholarships for a term. Census dates for the 2017-18 aid year and minimum enrollment requirements for the various financial aid programs can be found on the Office of Student Financial Aid and Scholarships website at www.pdx.edu/finaid/eligibility. At the census date of each term each student’s final enrollment is locked. Grants and scholarships for that term are then adjusted based on the enrollment level at that time. When a reduction is required due to a student’s reduced enrollment level at the census date the reduction can create a balance due on the student’s PSU account. If there is tuition refund because of dropped credits, the tuition refund will be used to reduce the balance due on the student’s account. Credits added after the census date cannot be used to increase grant or scholarship eligibility.

Students must be enrolled at least half-time to be eligible for Federal Direct Loans. Students who drop below half-time after their loans are disbursed will have their Cost of Attendance decreased and may therefore see a reduction in their loan amounts for subsequent terms if required to prevent an over award. Loans disbursed after the census date will be based on the student’s enrollment at the time of disbursement. Retroactive aid (aid for a term that has ended prior to disbursement) must be disbursed based on completed grades/credit hours. Grades that are considered “complete” for disbursement purposes are: A, B, C, D, P, I or IP.

Withdrawals—Official/Unofficial

Please see the annual Registration Guide, or visit www.pdx.edu/registration, for the university policy regarding dropping classes and tuition refunds. The Registrar’s Office is the official designated contact point for students who withdraw from all classes. Students who withdraw completely during the term and are receiving federal and/or state financial aid may have a percentage of their aid reversed, based upon a formula prescribed by federal regulation. These students will have any unearned portion of their aid charged back to their PSU account, and may owe repayment directly to the U.S. Department of Education of any overpaid federal grants. Federal student aid recipients who begin attending classes and then stop attending or stop performing academic activities prior to the end of the quarter are considered by the federal government to have unofficially withdrawn. For students who receive grades of X, M, NP, W or F in all of their classes, we must determine whether they they unofficially withdrew. If University records indicate that student did begin attending classes but subsequently unofficially withdrew, the University will consider the Unofficial Withdrawal date to be the midpoint of the quarter (unless documentation exists for an earlier or later date of attendance/academic activity by the student). If no attendance or academic activity can be documented, the Unofficial Withdrawal student must repay the entire amount of aid disbursed for that term. If University records show that a federal student aid recipient never attended a class or performed an academically related activity for a quarter or term, then the recipient never established eligibility for any grant or scholarship funds that were disbursed for that quarter or term. More information can be found at www.pdx.edu/finaid/withdrawing/.