Overview

The Ohio College Opportunity Grant (Institutional External Fund ID = OCOG) program provides grant money to Ohio (OH) residents who demonstrate the highest levels of financial need (as determined by the FAFSA), who are enrolled at Ohio Public University main campuses (not regional campuses or community colleges), Ohio private, nonprofit colleges or universities, and Ohio private, for-profit institutions.  

Background

Starting with Regent Award Release 4.4.0.0,  Regent Award is supporting automated awarding and disbursement of OCOG. Introducing automation into the state grant processing is expected to result in significant cost savings as well as increased awarding accuracy for schools.

The OCOG FAY begins with the Summer term and consists of the Summer, Fall, and Spring terms regardless of term dates.  The grant is always packaged using the latter FAY during the crossover Summer term, regardless of the FAY assigned to the term in Regent Award. The OCOG FAY ends with the Spring term. FAY for OCOG corresponds with Federal FAY, 7/1 - 6/30. The last day for FAY's Eligibility and Disbursement Query files changes from year to year. If there are outstanding OCOG disbursements at the end of the FAY, the school can request an extension for the term to re-open the window to request disbursements. Extensions must be approved by the state.

OCOG Eligibility

The following criteria are determined by Ohio State and are accounted for in the Ohio Eligibility Query:

• The most recent eligibility query determines eligible students for awarding current and future terms in the FAY

• Only students enrolled in specific programs at specific campuses are eligible for OCOG awards.

• Ohio residents in an undergraduate degree (associate or first Bachelor's) or nurse diploma program at an eligible Ohio or Pennsylvania institution are eligible

• Student's EFC (Expected Family Contribution) must be $2,190 or less

• A student must have a maximum household income of $96,000.

  • The field used to define household income is the FISAP Total Income (FTI) field from the ISIR.

• Students are limited to 10 FT semesters or 15 FT quarters (20 HT semesters or 30 HT quarters) of state, need-based grant aid (including a combination of OCOG and the Ohio Instructional Grant (OIG)).

• If a student becomes ineligible anytime in the school's academic year, the funds would need to be returned for all terms requested in that year.

  • If the student becomes ineligible on a subsequent Eligibility Query, Regent Award will cancel the

• • award for all current and future terms in the FAY. 

    • Refunds for closed periods will be handled manually. Regent Award will notify schools when a student loses eligibility on a paid OCOG award in a closed term, and the school will manually adjust the affected awards. See

• • • Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG)#Reports.

  • If the student is no longer on the Eligibility Query and they were previously eligible, Regent will trigger a task and block future OCOG disbursements for the student. 

The following criteria should be configured:

1. In Fund Setup configure the following:

   1. Fund External ID value OCOG

   2. ‘Allow Auto-Adjustment of Paid Disbursements’ = No

   3. ‘Attempt to Keep Paid Disbursements Unchanged’ = Yes or Yes (Inherited)

   4. Select eligible programs in the Programs tab

   5. Status
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       Configure 'Cease Auto-Packaging Date' for future FAYs, to use dates in the past, to prevent automatically applying the fund configuration.

2. In Term Setup configure the following:

   1. Enter a ‘External Term Code' value starting with two characters that highlight the type of term, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter using the two-letter code (SP, SM, AU, WI), followed by the year of the term

      1. Example 'External Term Code’ values from Herzing:

         1. Spring 2023, SP2023

         2. Summer 2023, SM2023

         3. Fall 2023, AU2023

         4. Winter2023, WI2023

3. In Roles the following Permissions should be enables:

   1. Global Permissions → Process Permissions → Import Processes → Import State Grants

   2. Global Permissions → Export Student Transactions → Access Export Student Transactions

   3. Global Permissions → Export Student Transactions → Run EST for DRI

   4. Global Permissions → Export Student Transactions → Run Expected EST

   5. Global Permissions → Export Student Transactions → Run EST for AR

Ohio Eligibility Query File Layout

The Eligibility Query is available to schools in an Excel file format. The file must be converted to Comma-Separated Values (CSV UTF-8) format to be consumed by Regent Award. The file contains one record per student per file.  The

standard file name is 1819_OCOG_Eligibility_Query_MM.DD.YYYY.csv, where 2018-2019 is FAY.  The following is OCOG Eligibility Query CSV File Format required by Regent:

• The file name determines the FAY to be processed.

• Eligible and ineligible students are listed together in the same file

  • ineligible students have a non-NULL "Reason Code"

Academic Progress

For OCOG eligibility, a student must be making satisfactory academic progress (SAP) as determined by the institution. 

Verification

For students selected for federal Verification on the ISIR, Verification must be complete to be awarded OCOG for the FAY.

• If a student is selected for federal Verification and the determination is made mid-FAY that they are now eligible for OCOG, then a request can be made any time in the school's academic year for OCOG funds, as long as Verification has been completed. Regent Award will not award OCOG to closed terms.

  • Regent Award will award OCOG to open and future terms.

  • Regent Award will not award OCOG to closed terms.

• If the determination is made that the student is no longer eligible for OCOG due to Verification or Verification has not been completed in that academic year for an enrolled student, then any funds requested for that academic year must be returned.

  • Regent Award will notify the school when a student loses eligibility on a paid OCOG award in a closed term. See

• • Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG)#Reports.

  • The school will manually refund OCOG for closed terms.

• If a student's ISIR was selected for Verification, the OCOG funds will not package until Verification has been completed.

Import Ohio State Grants - Eligibility Query Process 

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To import the Ohio Eligibility Query via the UI, on the Processes menu → Import Process screen,

 select "Import State Grants" under the Process Type drop-down.  Select "Ohio" under the State drop-down, and select "Eligibility Query" under the File Type drop-down. Only users with the "Import State Grants" permission can access this process.

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The students on the Eligibility Query will be matched to a student record in Regent Award using the Social Security Number (SSN) only. The match will only occur once the student’s ISIR is matched to the student in Regent Award, as

all OCOG eligible students will have completed an ISIR.

Any attempt to run the Import State Grants - Eligibility Query process produces a Process Log entry. The entire file will fail the import and show an error on the Error  tab of the Process Log if:

• Invalid data format/file imported

• File name does not match the expected naming convention (required to determine the FAY)

• No records are parsed from the file

• FAY cannot be matched to a FAY in Regent Award

If the individual record fails to process, show error in the Error Message field of the Students tab.  An individual record will fail to process if there is a failure to match student.

Upon successful import of the file, one of the two Activity Log Entries is created for each student on the imported Eligibility Query:

• Imported on Ohio Eligibility

• Query as eligible with [remaining semesters].

• Imported on Ohio Eligibility Query as ineligible due to Error Message Codes [list of codes].

Reprocess

In order to match up the state-provided data that was loaded prior to students existing in Regent Award to the students once they exist, Import Ohio State Grants - Eligibility Query Reprocess was created.  This process reprocesses only the current and immediately prior FAY vs. all FAYs in the data. Here is how the FAYs are determined:

• If today's date is

  • 11/01/2017: 2016-2017 & 2017-2018 (FAYs 2017 & 2018)

  • 01/01/2018: 2017-2018 & 2018-2019 (FAYs 2018 & 2019)

  • 06/30/2018: 2017-2018 & 2018-2019 (FAYs 2018 & 2019)

• To allow for "early" and "late" files by FAY, the logic relates to the calendar year

Implementation Note: The school can either request Regent to auto-schedule this process as needed or the user can initiate this process via the UI at ad hoc by selecting Processes → Reprocess Process → Roster Award - Reprocess.

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This process also produces the Process Log and Activity Log entries described above.

FileWatcher - Ohio Eligibility Query

The Import Ohio State Grants - Eligibility Query process is also available via FileWatcher.

Remaining Eligibility

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The Remaining Eligibility field on the Eligibility Query is used to determine the student's remaining eligibility, in the number of semesters or quarters, or OCOG.

  A given disbursement is not accounted for in the "Remaining Sems" value until its status is "Paid."  In other words, if the disbursement is in a "Scheduled" status in Regent Award, this semester has not been taken into consideration for determining the "Remaining Sems" value.  The remaining semesters on the Ohio Eligibility Query are updated at the same time that the Disbursement Query is loaded into the State's system.  The award must have been paid before the next eligibility query is received in order be excluded from the "Remaining Sems."

• For example, a student has 2.25 remaining semesters at the beginning of the Summer term.  The Summer term Three-Quarter Time (TQT) time award is paid on 08/03/2018.

  • The next eligibility query is imported on 8/8/2018 and reflects remaining semesters of 1.5 (.75 was subtracted from the remaining semesters due to the 3/4 time paid Summer award).  Had Summer not been paid, the eligibility query imported on 8/8/2018 would have reflected 2.25 semesters of eligibility.  

Counting Award Amounts Toward Remaining Eligibility

The portion of "remaining semester" that will be deducted from the student's remaining eligibility depends on the student's enrollment level in the term awarded.  For example:

For example, a student has 2.25 remaining semesters at the beginning of the Summer term.  The Summer term awarded at an enrollment level of Three-Quarter Time (TQT).  The student's Fall and Spring terms are both Half Time.

Less than 1 Term of Lifetime Remaining

Eligibility

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Lifetime Remaining Eligibility Lifetime Remaining Eligibility

The Remaining Semesters are indicated on

the Eligibility Query in the "Remaining Sems" field.   The student is considered to have partial eligibility if the lifetime remaining eligibility is less than 1 term. Partial eligibility is then determined based on the lifetime remaining eligibility calculation.  If the lifetime remaining eligibility is:

• < 1 term but > 0.75, the enrollment level used in the comparison will be FT.  

• ≤ 0.75 but > 0.5, the enrollment level used in the comparison will be TQT 

• ≤ 0.5 but > 0.25, the enrollment level used the comparison will be HT.

• ≤ 0.25, the enrollment level used in the comparison will be QT.

For example,

the Eligibility Query is received with the student's remaining eligibility of 0.67 semesters. The 0.67 semesters remaining is rounded up to 0.75 (TQT) for the student's lifetime remaining eligibility.

Students that have less than a full quarter or semester remaining may receive an award for less than the FT award amount (even if they're actually enrolled at a greater enrollment status).  Please note that this is separate from the student's enrollment level in Regent Award.  

Enrollment Levels

The enrollment level for OCOG is dependent on credit-bearing (Program Applicable)

 courses only. The student’s term enrollment level in Regent Award is determined using the course information provided in the SBL.  Enrollment level definitions are: 

Awarding Rules

Regent Award always uses the current Active ISIR to award regardless of the Transaction Number provided on the Ohio Eligibility Query. Regent Award uses only Actual enrollment for a student. OCOG will not be awarded using anticipated units.

The OCOG award chart below outlines the annual maximum per student award

amounts based on the student's enrollment level by FAY. Please note, however, that the student is eligible to receive up to 3-semester awards per FAY, up to $4,500 (2018-2019 FAY).

*Rounded down to the nearest dollar per semester.  For example, 3/4 time for 2021-22 would be $1,387 per semester.  

If the student

has Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG)#Lifetime Remaining Eligibility, the student's enrollment level in Regent Award for a given term in the FAY (Summer, Fall, and Spring) will be matched to the value provided in the "Eligible Amounts - [Enrollment Level]" field on the Eligibility Query and that number will be divided by 2 to determine the student's award amount per term. Using 2018-19 values, for example:

• If the student is enrolled FT in the term, the OCOG award amount for that term will be $1,500 ($3,000/2).

• If the student is enrolled TQT in the term, the OCOG award for that term will be $1,125 ($2,250/2).

• If the student is enrolled HT in the term, the OCOG award for that term will be $750 ($1,500/2).

• If the student is enrolled QT in the term, the OCOG award for that term will be $375 ($750/2)

• If the student is not enrolled in a term, no OCOG will be awarded.

If the student has less than one semester of partial 

Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG)#Lifetime Remaining Eligibility for the term, Regent Award determines the enrollment level amount to use by comparing the lesser of the lifetime remaining eligibility and the Regent Award actual term enrollment level.  The student is awarded the lesser of the enrollment level amount for the term. For example: 

• If the student is enrolled FT in the term, the OCOG award amount for that term could be $1,500 ($3,000/2).

• However, the student has only 0.67 semesters of Lifetime Remaining Eligibility.  Rounded to 0.75, the compared enrollment level is TQT, making their OCOG award for the term $1,125 ($2,250/2).

If the student does not have any 

Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG)#Lifetime Remaining Eligibility, OCOG will not be awarded for the term.

If the student was eligible on the Eligibility Query, but Regent Award does not have any enrollment for that open term, Regent Award will create a $0 award in a "Canceled" status.

Cost of Attendance (COA)

OCOG is packaged to Cost of Attendance.  

• If the OCOG award amount exceeds the student's COA, Regent Award reduces awards in accordance with the Packaging Philosophy and if applicable, reduces the OCOG award amount to cover up to the remaining COA.

• The reduction is reflected in the Lifetime Remaining Eligibility. For example, if the student was eligible for a FT award (1 semester of usage) but COA allowed the student to get only half of that amount, only half a semester of eligibility used is reflected in the Lifetime Remaining Eligibility.

• Students' lifetime utilization is determined from the reported enrollment level, not the award amount.  

  • Note: When the student is eligible for an amount that is less than their actual enrollment level in Regent Award, the school will use the amount of the award to infer the proper enrollment status to report back to the state.

Special Calculations

OCOG requires a special calculation if a student is awarded the Ohio National Guard Scholarship or the Ohio War Orphans Scholarship award amounts. Regent Award will trigger a task if either one of these grants is awarded so that the school can manually adjust OCOG.

Full Withdrawals

Regent Award will not calculate refunds of the OCOG award for full withdrawals. At the time of withdrawal, Regent Award will “freeze” the OCOG award so that the school can manually adjust it if needed. For the future terms in which student will no longer be enrolled, the reduced enrollment level will cause the student to become ineligible for OCOG, and therefore, the disbursements in future terms will be canceled.

Re-entries

There is no recalculation to prior OCOG awards for students re-entering into their previous program unless the student has become ineligible for the FAY. The OCOG awards for re-entry are calculated for each term in the FAY in the same manner as new students.

Graduates

The OCOG awards for prior graduates are calculated in the new program for each term in the FAY in the same manner as new students. 

Program Changes  

If the new program is eligible for the fund, each term in the new program is calculated for eligibility using the same awarding and remaining eligibility calculations.  If the new program is not eligible for the fund, the students in the new program would not receive any OCOG awards. Eligible programs are configured via Fund Setup.

Manual Awards 

The school staff can also manually add or adjust OCOG awards using the Add / Modify Award Wizards (AAW / MAW). Only one OCOG award can exist per FAY.  If a student has the OCOG awarded for the FAY and the user attempts to add another OCOG award via the AAW, Regent Award will navigate the user out of the AAW and into the MAW so that the existing OCOG award can be manually adjusted. To add the OCOG award for the student that was not imported on the Ohio Eligibility Query, the user must select the "Override Eligibility Rules" checkbox on Step 1 of the AAW. Those staff-adjusted awards will be marked Manual (not managed by Regent Award).  The auto-packaging logic will not make any changes to Manual awards.

State Tab

Once the student is successfully packaged, the OCOG award information can be viewed on the student’s State Tab. Clicking on the record in the State Awards grid displays the details in the State Data Records.

Disbursements 

Disbursement Eligibility

To be eligible for OCOG disbursements, a student should be eligible on the last Ohio Eligibility Query and have a

record with a disbursement amount in the Ohio Disbursement Query.  Regent Award will consume the results of the Ohio Disbursement Query for use in disbursing OCOG. A student must have attendance for the term of disbursement and all blocking documents/tasks must be satisfied/waived/closed. If the determination is made that the student is no longer eligible for OCOG due to being unverified or verification has not been completed in that academic year for an enrolled student, then any funds requested for that academic year must be returned.  Refunds for closed periods will be handled manually.  Regent Award will notify the school when a student loses eligibility on a paid OCOG award in a closed term. See Reports.

When there is rounding involved with the OCOG disbursements, Regent Award will drop the cents completely to prevent an over-award.

Ohio Disbursement Query File Layout 

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Disbursement Query Disbursement Query

The Disbursement Query is available to schools in an Excel file format. The file must be converted to Comma-Separated Values (CSV UTF-8) format to be consumed by Regent Award. The

standard file name is 1819_OCOG_Disbursement_Query_MM.DD.YYYY.csv, where 2018-2019 is FAY.  The following is OCOG Disbursement Query CSV File Format required by Regent:

Import Ohio State Grants - Disbursement Query Process 

To import the Ohio Disbursement Query via the UI, on the Processes menu → Import Process screen,

 select "Import State Grants" under the Process Type drop-down.  Select "Ohio" under the State drop-down, and select "Disbursement Query" under the File Type drop-down. Only users with the "Import State Grants" permission can access this process.

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The students on the Disbursement Query will be matched to a student record in Regent Award using the Social Security Number (SSN) only. The match will only occur once the student’s ISIR is matched to the student in Regent Award, as

all OCOG eligible students must have completed an ISIR.

Any attempt to run the Import State Grants - Disbursement Query process produces a Process Log entry.  The entire file will fail the import and show an error on the Error  tab of the Process Log if:

• Invalid data format/file is imported

• File name does not match the expected naming convention (required to determine the FAY)

• No records are parsed from the file

• FAY cannot be matched to an FAY in Regent Award

• Running disbursement amount is negative (< 0)

• Distinct termId cannot be matched

• At least one student on the file is starting out their first transaction < $0

In the case of an import failure, review the file to confirm it is in the correct format and being imported in the correct order with respect to other Disbursement Query files. 

If the individual record fails to process, the error will be displayed in the Error Message field of the Students tab for the file in the Process Log.  An individual record will fail to process if there is a failure to match the student in the file to a student in Regent Award.  In the case of an individual record failure, the user should review the record to determine why the student did not match.

Upon successful import of the file, an Activity Log Entry is created for each student on the imported Disbursement Query:

• Imported on OH Disbursement Query for [Amount] for [Term/Payment Period].

FileWatcher - Ohio Disbursement Query

The Import Ohio State Grants - Disbursement Query process is also available via FileWatcher.

Disbursement Rules

If the student's scheduled disbursement amount in Regent Award is equal to the disbursement amount on the Ohio Disbursement Query, Regent Award will disburse the full amount.  

If the student's scheduled disbursement amount in Regent Award is NOT equal to the disbursement amount on the Ohio Disbursement Query, Regent Award will disburse the amount provided in the Ohio Disbursement Query.

If a student's scheduled disbursement amount in Regent Award is greater or less than the disbursement amount on the Ohio Disbursement Query, Regent Award will disburse the amount provided in the Ohio Disbursement Query. Expected EST will yield a positive/negative transaction for the difference to be used to invoice the state.

If a student's scheduled disbursement amount in Regent Award fluctuates to amounts greater than OR less than the disbursement amount on the Ohio Disbursement Query.  Regent Award will disburse the amount provided in the Ohio Disbursement Query. Expected EST will yield the appropriate positive and negative transactions needed for invoicing the state.

Reports 

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Regent Award will notify schools when a student loses eligibility on a paid OCOG award in a closed term via the OH State Grant report. 

External Term Code 

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In order to match the Term in Regent Award to the Term on the Ohio Disbursement Query, the External Term Code field must be configured on Term Setup.   The values must follow XXYYYY format, where XX  is SM, AU, or SP value from the

Ohio College Opportunity Grant (OCOG)#Term column of the Disbursement Query; and YYYY is the FAY for the OCOG award.  For example, Fall 2018 would be indicated as "AU2019" in the External Term Code field.

Change Log