Overview
This page describes basic time-related concepts in Regent Award.
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ED's main building blocks are Federal Award Years, Academic Years, Enrollment Periods, Terms, and Payment Periods.
Regent Award uses ED's time periods, and also has additional system concepts of Award Periods and Loan Periods, including the special Default Loan Period.
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AYs are mainly used for awarding Direct Loans. An Academic Year is a period of time covering approximately one year of a student's program. ED allows each AY to have Direct Loan amounts up to an "annual" AY limit. See https://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/T1LHVb8Z.
Types of AYs
ED defines two main types of Academic Years: SAY and BBAY.
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For example, a typical SAY semester school might have Fall and Spring semesters.
SAY AYs always include the "standard" terms for the full AY, regardless of the student's actual enrollment in those terms.
For example, if a student starts in the Spring semester, the student's SAY AY dates will still cover Fall and Spring.
*SAY AYs might or might not include an additional, optional term, such as Summer.
The AY dates extend to include the optional term. A "header" is added at the beginning of a SAY AY. A "trailer" is added at the end.
Those optional "header" or "trailer" terms are only included in a SAY AY if the student has loans for that optional term, or has a Manual AY with the optional term.
Most Summer Header/Trailers are crossover. If the optional SAY term does not have crossover dates, the school must run a script to enable the correct SAY AY structure. The script is needed every time a new Program or new Term is added.
More SAY details are at Optional Header and Trailer Terms for SAYSAY details are at https://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/ES4Xw411.
BBAY
BBAY - "Borrower Based" Academic Year: Has dates that can change depending on the individual student's enrollment pattern and/or loans.
BBAYs can be term, nonstandard term, or nonterm. All nonterm AYs are BBAY AYs.
BBAY length is set by the student's program, as configured in Program Setup.
Term-based BBAYs:
The very first term in the BBAY is the "anchor" term. A term or nonstandard term BBAY starts with an anchor term, and continues for the defined AY length.
The anchor term is supposed to have Direct Loans.
The later terms (after the first) do not necessarily need any enrollment.
For example, a term-based school can define a BBAY as 2 terms long. A BBAY term school might have Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer terms. A student who starts in the Spring term would have a two-term BBAY AY of Spring and Summer. Spring is the anchor term and it must have registration. The following, Summer term is always included in the BBAY AY, regardless of the Summer registration or loans.
Nonterm BBAYs: See below.
For BBAY programs, a student might have multiple AYs in the same calendar year or FAY.
For example, a term-based BBAY student might have AY1 (Fall, Winter) and AY2 (Spring, Summer), all within the same FAY. Each AY can be awarded up to the annual maximum Direct Loan limits, even from the same FAY. See Direct Loan Annual and Aggregate LimitsSee https://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/T1LHVb8Z.
Special "AYs" in Regent Award
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"Non-BBAY" AYs - These are "filler" periods used for tracking aid in non-loan terms on the Academic Plan. BBAYs are technically supposed to always start with an enrollment having Title IV loans. The "non-BBAY" AYs allow Regent Award to display enrollment periods on the Academic Plan when the student only has non-loan aid in that term, such as Pell grants or institutional aid. Non-BBAY AYs are still numbered such as AY1, AY2, AY3 in Regent Award.
Manual AYs - These are defined by a user in the PMW, by script, or by conversion data. Manual AYs have fixed, manual dates and a specified Federal Award Year. See Manual Academic Year Validationhttps://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/Wuvn1vji. A Manual AY is often referred to in the code as "SBM" for Student BBAY Modification.
AY0 - "AY zeroes" are a special type of tracking-only Manual AY. AY0s are typically used for students who have legacy data converted from other financial aid systems. AY0s normally have no course data. AY0s are copied over from before a school began managing Financial Aid in Regent Award. AY0s have very special rules.
Abbreviated Periods - These are another special type of Manual AY, used for tracking financial aid previously awarded at another (non-Regent) school.
Shortened Remaining Period of Study (RPS) AY - These special AYs are always the final Academic Year in a student's program. If a student will finish their program sooner than a "regular" full AY length, the student is said to have a "shortened remaining period of study."
For term and nonstandard term programs, a shortened period of study is any AY with fewer enrolled terms than the normal number of regular terms in the AY. For example, if a student has registration in only 2 of the 3 terms in a 3-term BBAY, and then they graduate, that BBAY is a Shortened RPS AY.
For nonterm, an RPS AY is when the student has fewer units remaining than one full AY. Weeks do not affect a nonterm RPS AY.
Title IV aid amounts are proportionally reduced (prorated) in RPS AYs. See Non-Term Payment Period Length for short Remaining Period of Study (RPS)https://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/0vD64DxH.
Enrollments and Enrollment Types
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A term has a defined start date and end date, set by the school.
Term dates do not depend on the student's coursework.
A term student has multiple terms within an AY.
AYs may be SAY or BBAY.
Example terms: Semesters, Trimesters, or Quarters.
Subscription Periods use term-based enrollments.
Modules use term-based enrollments.
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Nonterm programs do not have fixed calendar dates set by the school. Instead, a nonterm AY's dates directly depend on the individual student's courses. Nonterm AYs often have very dynamic dates that change frequently.
Example nonterm programs: Clock-hour programs at some FAS schools, Brandman's CBE programs, Capella's FlexPath (programs with "FP" in the name).
Nonterm AY length is based on the student's courses meeting the required units and weeks defined in Program Setup. A student must fulfill both the required units and the required weeks to progress to the next PP or AY.
Weeks are Instructional Weeks. An Instructional Week is a 7-day period that includes at least 1 day of course registration. Schools define the first day of an instructional week (e.g. Sunday).
Special AYs:
Change link here to OGB for Managing Abbreviated Periods
Non-Substantially-Equal (NSE) Program Changes can affect the AY dates. See Program Changeshttps://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/1eDgxGi1.
PP - Payment Period
Regent Award uses the generic term "payment period" or "PP" to refer to chunks of time for apportioning financial aid.
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In Regent Award, if a term or payment period is linked to an AY but that term/PP cannot have any enrollment, Regent Award will mark it as "Historic" - see Historic Terms and Payment Periodshttps://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/JHnNU3XE.
Enrollment Levels
For term-based enrollment periods, many Title IV awards depend on the student's enrollment level in the term. For terms other than Subscription Periods, the award's enrollment level is based on the student's number of anticipated or registered units in the term. For example, many traditional semester schools have 12 units as full-time for undergraduates, so a student with 12 registered units would be awarded at the FullTime enrollment level.
Subscription Period terms use the configured 'Subscription Period Enrollment Level' in Program Setup instead of the student's registered units; see Subscription Periodshttps://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/fv679Tgp.
Term and NST Pell Grants are awarded based on enrollment level. Federal Loans need a minimum Half-Time enrollment level.
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Example: A traditional SAY semester school has Fall, Spring, and Summer terms. In AY1, a student starts their program with HT enrollment in Summer 2019. Then in AY2, the student is HT in Fall, LTHT in Spring 2020, and HT in Summer 2020. The screenshot shows one FAY-based award period (FAY 2019-2020), and two AY-based award periods (AY1 and AY2).Anchor
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If an Award Period has an end date in the past, Regent Award does not normally repackage that award or make any changes. Users can still trigger repackaging in past periods.
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Regent Award links every AY-based award to a loan period. A loan period is a set of one or more consecutivepayment periods within the same Academic Year, where the AY-based award has positive (nonzero) amounts for all of the included PPs. For Title IV Loans, the loan period's start date matches the start date of the first PP having a positive amount in the AY. The loan period's end date matches the last PP's end date having a positive amount in the same AY.
An exception to the "consecutive PPs with positive amounts" rule is the special "Default Loan Period" - see below.
AY-based awards cover PPs within a single Academic Year. For the above example student, the student has Subsidized loan money in the Summer 2019 term and the Fall 2019 term. However, because those terms are in separate AYs, they must each use different Loan Periods.
For term and nonstandard term students, a single AY might contain one or more different Loan Periods, depending on the awarding pattern of AY-based awards within that AY. The example student pictured above does not have any loans in the LTHT semester for Spring 2020. The student has several separate single-term Loan Periods.
Regent Award marks each Loan Period in the database with the loan period's FAY. The loan period's FAY is visible on the Academic Plan with a four-digit FAY (for example, "2020" for FAY 2019-2020). During packaging, RNA also recalculates and stores additional information in the loan period such as loan period EFC, COA, Unmet Cost, and Unmet Need.
Loan Periods often contain multiple loans. If two loans both have the same dates and same FAY, both loans will normally be on the same loan period. For example, paired Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans normally share the same loan period.
Disbursements are linked to PPs in a loan period, but the actual disbursements' scheduled dates may occur outside the PP dates. For example, Brandman and BYUI disburse before the term's start.
Nonterm programs normally have the full Academic Year as the loan period. Nonterm loan periods can sometimes be shortened to end with the PP1 end date in the case of an R2T4 or non-substantially equal program change.
COD has special reporting rules for loan period dates (COD's "Financial Award Period" dates). For both term-based and nonterm programs, if a term or payment period has any positive loan disbursement money for the PP, that term or PP must be included in the loan period. If a term or payment period does not have any loan dollars, that term or PP must not be in the loan period dates. Any zeroed-out disbursements are considered cancelations at COD. Zeroed-out disbursements have relaxed validation rules at COD. For example, a zeroed-out disbursement may still be linked to a PP outside of the loan period or AY dates without triggering a COD rejection. For term-based rules, see Reporting AY Dates to COD for Term-based Direct Loans.
Default Loan Period
In Regent Award, the Default Loan Period is a special, system-generated loan period for AY-based awards (such as Direct Loans). The Default Loan Period, regardless of actual loan dollars, always matches the full AY length. The Default Loan Period's dates start with the AY start date and end with the AY end date, regardless of any loan amounts or loan eligibility. Most loans and other AY-based awards that run the full Academic Year are linked to the Default Loan Period. During packaging, the system might truncate the Default Loan Period or create other, additional loan periods. For example, a student might withdraw all enrollment from a term and no longer have any loan money in the term, so the original default loan period would be truncated to exclude that term and the loan would change to be on a separate, shorter loan period covering the terms that still have loan money.
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If a PP includes both June 30 and July 1 of the same calendar year, a school may award Pell in that PP using either FAY (not both). When Regent packages Pell, the system chooses the FAY/ISIR using the 'FAY Crossover Awarding" configuration ("Exhaust Current Year," "Award ONLY from prior Year," etc.). A user may override the Pell Crossover FAY using Advanced Packaging "MAP Step 2" - see Modify Academic Plan Wizard.
AY Loan Crossovers
A crossover AY contains both June 30 and July 1 of the same calendar year.
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Regent Award does not use the "FAY Crossover Awarding" setting for packaging AY-based funds such as Direct Loans in a crossover AY. Instead, special rules apply - see Direct Loan Precedence Rules for Assigning FAYs/ISIRs.
COD
Consolidated Origination and Disbursement (COD) is the US Department of Education's computer system for tracking Title IV Loans and Federal Grants such as Pell. The COD Tab shows information that was previously sent to COD in the past, along with data received from COD in the past. The Loans tab shows an award's current information that will be transmitted to COD when the data is sent to COD in the future - see Loans Screen Requirements.
FAID
The Financial Award Identifier (FAID) is a unique key for tracking a Federal Direct Loan at COD. Regent Award assigns the loan ID when a loan is first created. Whenever RNA creates a new loan in a loan period, the system uses the loan period's information for initializing the new loan's information that would be sent to COD. For example, if the loan period's FAY is 2020, Regent would assign a unique Financial Award ID (FAID) containing "S20" for a Subsidized loan, or "U20" for an Unsubsidized Loan. The loan's three-digit sequence number at the end of the FAID (such as "001," "002," etc.) is assigned for tracking multiple awards from the same loan fund in the same FAY.
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The Loan Period's start and end dates correspond to the COD Financial Award Begin and End dates. The reported AY dates might differ from the AY displayed on the Academic Plan; see Reporting AY Dates to COD for Term-based Direct Loans.
The Loans tab displays the information that will be sent to COD. Below is a screenshot showing the above example student's Fall 2019 single-term 2019-2020 Subsidized loan. More details on the Loans tab are at Loans Screen Requirements.
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