Awarding Approach per

Payment Period

To make it easier to borrow less, schools may offer students a choice of borrowing approaches in each term or payment period.

In Regent Award, the borrowing approach is called the "Packaging Philosophy." The Packaging Philosophy is an ordered list of funds and the rules for applying the fund's amounts to the remaining costs. See Awarding And Packaging for more details.

For example, a school may offer a choice of Packaging Philosophy, per term or payment period.  The school could configure two sets of Packaging Philosophy rules: one that packages to Direct Costs only, and another one that packages to the higher, maximum eligibility of the student's full remaining Cost of Attendance. The student would choose one of those options to apply to each current and future term/PP, and also all future AYs.  Students can then decide on a per-PP or term-by-term basis whether to borrow Direct Costs, or to borrow their total Cost of Attendance (COA).

How Per-PP Borrowing Works

Regent calculates the total cost or "Package To" target for all funds in the loan period. For example, students might have a mix of Pell Grants, Subsidized and Unsubsidized loans in several terms in a loan period. The system only considers the terms within the loan period for packaging. The system ignores any terms outside the loan period.

Regent still calculates the total eligible packaging amount (across all funds) based on the entire Loan Period's total costs; see Awarding And Packaging. However, the system also calculates an additional constraint or cap on the total PP amounts in each PP or term in the loan period. The PP/term cap amounts are added together to set a total Loan Period "Package To" target amount. The resulting target amount is distributed across all the current and future terms in the loan period.

For each term or PP, the maximum cap amount is the greater of:

• The per-PP or per-term target amount, as calculated by the student's current chosen Packaging Philosophy for the term/PP; or
• The paid disbursements for the term/PP, for all funds in the PP.

Target Loan Period Total

Regent Award still strives to meet the student's financial need and costs. The system applies special logic for students using the per-term/per-PP repackaging current and future amounts.

The loan period's target amount (target COA) is the sum of past, present, and future payment periods:

• Any "frozen" per-term caps for any closed (past) payment periods within the loan period;
• The newly calculated per-term caps for the current payment period, as adjusted for the chosen packaging philosophy and any paid disbursements; and
• the calculated per-term caps for the future payment periods in the loan period, as adjusted for the chosen packaging philosophy.

Future loan periods (future AYs) are also targeted for the chosen packaging philosophy.

Paid Disbursements

Regent preserves paid disbursements from all funds in counting toward the loan period's target total amount. If a term or PP already has any paid disbursements, but the student's new chosen Packaging Philosophy would result in a lower per-term amount, then Regent Award will still keep that higher term cap at a minimum of the paid disbursements for the term. Regent will not reduce the term cap below the already-paid total amount, for all funds. The system can still increase the amount if the student chooses a different Packaging Philosophy; it just will not decrease.

Regent does not refund (reduce) an already-paid disbursement if the sole reason is a student choosing a different Packaging Philosophy for the term. However, if a loan amount in the term is reduced for another, unrelated reason (such as the student changing to a lower calculated eligibility for the term), then Regent Award will still repackage the term and the loan using the lower award amount as normal. That normal amount change might result in a refund.

Past Periods: Freezing the Per-PP Cap

When a payment period or term is packaged on or before the term end date, the system stores the per-term cap amount. The system does not change that per-term cap amount after the term/PP's end date.  Regent continues to change current and future payment periods; however, the existing per-term cap amount does not change.

Ineligible Terms or Payment Periods

If a payment period or term is not eligible for loans, the system does not consider that PP/term as part of the Loan Period. For example, if a student had a term ineligible for loans due to SAP, the term would not be in the Loan Period, and the per-term cap amounts would disregard that term.

Special Situations

Regent has additional logic to handle the following special cases.

1. If a student first becomes eligible for loans after one or more loan periods is in the past, the system uses the regular loan period Package To target based on the chosen packaging philosophy at the time.
   1. For example, if a student first has an ISIR verified in term 2 of a 3-term AY, and they are packaged for loans in terms 1, 2, and 3, the system still packages loans in Term 1 even though Term 1's end date is in the past (it is a "closed" period). 
   2. In this case, Regent still uses the regular Loan Period "Package To" target.
2. If Regent Award first packages a student with loans in terms/PPs other than the first term/PP in the AY, then the system evenly distributes the Loan Period Package To amount over all the eligible periods. 
   1. For example, if a student had a 3-term AY of all LTHT enrollment, but the student added HT enrollment in terms 2 and 3, then the system would distribute 50% in term 2 and 50% in term 3.

Example Scenarios: Per-PP Packaging Philosophy Changes

The following examples are all based on a school with two Packaging Philosophy choicesconfigurations:  one for Direct Costs only, and another for the Maximum COA.

Scenarios with Unpaid Disbursements

Example 1: During Term 1, before any payments, a student chooses Direct Costs for their entire Academic Plan

A student has a 3-term Academic Year 1, with full-time enrollment and loan eligibility in all three terms. Today is currently during the middle of Term 1. The student first chooses to package to Direct Costs only.

• AY1 loan amount is based on the total of (Term 1 Direct Costs) + (Term 2 Direct Costs) + (Term 3 Direct Costs)
  • AY1, Term 1 - Direct Costs only
  • AY1, Term 2 - Direct Costs only
  • AY1, Term 3 - Direct Costs only
• Future AYs: Direct Costs only

Example 2: During Term 1, before any payments, a student chooses Maximum COA for Term 1, and Direct Costs for their remaining terms and Academic Plan

The student reviews the amounts. Then, the student changes Term 1 to package to the maximum (limited by COA).  The remaining terms still package the loan amounts to Direct Costs only. Future AYs also package loans to Direct Costs only.

• AY1 loan amount is based on the total of (Term 1 Max COA) + (Term 2 Direct Costs) + (Term 3 Direct Costs)
  • AY1, Term 1 - Maximum COA
  • AY1, Term 2 - Direct Costs only
  • AY1, Term 3 - Direct Costs only
• Future AYs: Direct Costs only

Regent Award automatically increases the total loan amount to include the higher Term 1 max COA amount. Because today's date is currently during Term 1, the amount is divided equally across all three terms. 

Scenarios

with Paid Disbursements

In general, Regent Award tries to preserve the original amount on a paid disbursement. If the award amount is increased, Regent adds more disbursements. If the award amount is reduced, Regent tries to first reduce any unpaid disbursements, and then may reduce paid disbursements (triggering a refund or negative student transaction).  More information on adjusting amounts and paid disbursements is at Fund Setup.

Using the same example student as before: If the Term 1 loans had already been paid at the Direct Cost level, and the student then chose to repackage Term 1 as Maximum COA, the total loan amount would still increase, because the Maximum COA is higher than the Direct Costs.

Example 3: Same as Example 1, but Term 1 was already paid for Direct Costs. After payment, but still during Term 1, the student changes from all Direct Costs to Term 1 only Maximum COA, already paid at Direct Costs for Term 1 only

• AY1 loan amount is based on the total of (Term 1 Max COA) + (Term 2 Direct Costs) + (Term 3 Direct Costs)
  
  • AY1, Term 1 - Maximum COA or paid Direct Costs (Max COA is higher than Direct Costs)
  • AY1, Term 2 - Direct Costs only
  • AY1, Term 3 - Direct Costs only
• Future AYs: Direct Costs only

The system would automatically schedule additional disbursements for Term 1's loans, to increase the total loan amount. The system would also increase the disbursement amounts for Term 2 and Term 3.

Example 4: Term 1 already paid for Max COA; during Term 1, the student changes from Max COA to all Direct Costs.

However, if the same student was already paid for the Maximum COA, but tried to change Term 1 to Direct Costs, the total loan amount would not be reduced, because the already-paid Maximum COA amount is higher than the Direct Costs.

• AY1 stays at the higher amount:
  • AY1, Term 1 - Maximum COA or paid Direct Costs (Max COA is higher than Direct Costs)
  • AY1, Term 2 - Direct Costs only
  • AY1, Term 3 - Direct Costs only
• Future AYs: Direct Costs only

The system does not reduce paid disbursements in past terms/PPs. If the loan disbursements in a term or PP were already paid, the system tries to keep them the same (depending on the fund's configuration - see .If a payment period has already ended, Regent sets the term cap to the   Fund Setup Data Elements.

The system calculates the per-PP loan cap for each PP or term that the student is expected to attend.The system calculates term cap amount for current and future payment periods only. 

Maximum amount determined by the chosen packaging philosophy (e.g. Direct Costs only, or Total COA); OR

Paid Disbursements, Past Periods, and Other Exceptions

The system will not change . If a payment period has already ended, Regent sets the term cap to the existing amount.   

Configuration Settings

Schools need to configure multiple settings to enable repackaging. See My Borrowing Setup.

Fund Setup

Specifically, a A school needs to configure Fund Setup for the Federal loan funds. An administrator must first enable the Fund Setup configuration setting, "Repackaging Option for Changes to Packaging Philosophy."  The configuration setting may be enabled for Federal Subsidized, Federal Unsubsidized, and Graduate PLUS loans. Image Removed

For awards created in an initial award status of Accepted (passive acceptance), the Fund Setup configuration must be Yes for "Allow Students to Accept Lower Amounts or Decline Awards from the Student Portal."

See Fund Setup Data Elements.

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