Identifying Students for R2T4

If the student receives an incomplete in all courses for the period, the SBL should provide the R2T4 node with the Date of Determination (DOD) and Withdrawal Date (WDD) in the event the grades in these courses are subsequently changed to unearned F’s, i.e. the student has not completed the course within the required timeframe.

When schools are using the R2T4 Automated Process, Regent Award is able to automatically identify whether or not a student requires an R2T4 if the student has a "Review R2T4" task and the appropriate configuration is in place.

Alternatively, schools may use any one of the following task triggers to identify a student who may need an R2T4:

The user should not complete the task until the R2T4 has been finalized or it is determined that an R2T4 is not necessary. This measure prevents potential changes to awards while the R2T4 is in process. Once the R2T4 is finalized, the should be changed to ‘Completed’, ‘Closed’, or ‘Waived’.  If a school is using the "Review R2T4" task to identify a student for a potential R2T4, once the R2T4 is finalized whether manually by a user or by the R2T4 Automation Process, the task will automatically be set to a status of 'Closed.' 

Regent Award also provides a task trigger delay for specific R2T4 tasks configured at the Institution-level.  These options suppress the R2T4 tasks from firing immediately upon receipt of SBL course withdrawal data, allowing time for the student to re-enroll in replacement courses. This functionality prevents the task from triggering during periods of normal enrollment fluctuation.

Determining the Percentage of the Period Completed 

The R2T4 Wizard determines the percentage of the period completed by dividing the number of calendar days completed (numerator) by the total number of calendar days in the period (denominator).  This includes all the days within the period that the student was scheduled to complete, except for any scheduled breaks of at least five consecutive days when the student is not scheduled to attend a module or other course offered during that period or is on an approved leave of absence.

Only periods the student was expected to attend should be included in the numerator and denominator.

Periods of more than four days between registered courses should be excluded as break days from the numerator (if before the withdrawal date) and the denominator.

Non-term

A formula is required in order to calculate the Period of Enrollment for a non-term student.  The R2T4-Only Payment Period Extrapolation Formula provides a compliant method based of FSA Handbook guidance for Regent Award to calculate a nonterm student's projected payment period length and related dates for R2T4 purposes. 

Modules for Terms

Future modules in the R2T4 period for which the student was registered at the time of withdrawal are included in the R2T4 calculation, even if the student withdrew from them at the time of withdrawal or after ceasing attendance.  If the student withdrew from future modules before ceasing attendance in current classes (before a full withdrawal from the term), those modules are not included in the R2T4 calculation.

Breaks of at least five consecutive days before, between, or after modules that the student is scheduled to attend are excluded from both the numerator (up through the withdrawal date) and the denominator when calculating the percentage of the period completed by the student.  For more information on Modular R2T4s see R2T4 for Modules.

Counting Breaks

The R2T4 Wizard counts all calendar days in the R2T4 period between the earliest course start date through the latest course end date for the courses in which the student was enrolled at the time of the withdrawal date.  

These are all considered instructional days unless the break is greater than four consecutive days in length made up of one or more of the following:

• Institutional breaks
• Student breaks (LOA, CORE, and such)
• Breaks in enrollment between the last day of an enrolled course and the first day of the next course
• Weekends, for schools that indicate they do not have classes on weekdays

Any instance or combination of the above that is not part of five or more consecutive non-instructional days counts as an instructional day.

Breaks Adjacent to a Weekend

Per the “< 5-day gap override rule” every weekend would be counted towards the instructional day count unless there was a break in conjunction to it that made the gap five or more days long.

Any gap or break at the start or end of the period falls into the same “< 5-day gap override rule”.

If the R2T4 period starts or ends during a break when instruction will not be offered for more than 4 consecutive days, those non-instructional days that fall during the R2T4 period will be counted as break days.

Non-Attendance Taking Schools

For students who officially withdraw, the official withdrawal date must be provided.  When a student withdraws without notification from schools that are not required to take attendance, Regent Award allows a user to either provide the last day of academically related activity for the student as the Withdrawal Date or to indicate that the 50% option should be used for the student's R2T4.

R2T4 Calculation

Regent Award pre-populates the R2T4 Wizard with the Title IV aid awards (except Federal Work Study) that are associated with the R2T4 period.  Loans must have been originated (per the configuration item "Date Used to Consider Non-Rebuild Loan as Originated") prior to or on the withdrawal date and from the period for which the R2T4 is being calculated.  Campus-based awards must have been offered by the Withdrawal Date, needs-based awards must not be pending Verification, and for all Title IV funds, an eligible ISIR must have been received by the Withdrawal Date. Any awards not meeting these requirements are excluded from the R2T4.  See Including Funds in the R2T4 Calculation

Once the R2T4 is started, disbursements are blocked until the R2T4 is finalized unless the ‘Block Disbursements until R2T4 is Finalized’ field is unselected by the User.  See R2T4 Wizard - R2T4 Tab for detailed requirements and logic around the various fields of the R2T4 Wizard

Step 1:  Student’s Title IV Aid Information

The R2T4 Wizard displays the Title IV grants and loans the student was awarded for the R2T4 period as Disbursed, Inadvertent Overpayment (IOP) or Could Have Been Disbursed status, as well as a summary of the funds calculation.

Step 2:  Percentage of Title IV Aid Earned

The R2T4 Wizard displays the percentage of Title IV the student earned using the course enrollment information provided by the SBL. Pre-populated dates may be overridden. This screen displays the student course information for reference. If these dates are changed by the user, the user should select ‘Calculate’ to update the percentage completion.

The percentage of the period of enrollment completed is pre-populated with the calculated percentage based on the withdrawal date and payment period end dates. The amount in this box may be overridden. 

For clock hour programs, the “Hours Scheduled to Complete” can be provided by the school on the SBL and “Total Hours in Period” will be populated in Regent Award via the configured program setup.  Both fields can be manually overridden by the user.  As hours in the period may vary by institutions Regent Award does not automatically calculate this field. 

Related articles:  R2T4-Only Payment Period Extrapolation Formula; R2T4 for Modules

Step 3: Amount of Title IV Aid Earned

In step 3 of the R2T4 Wizard, the amount that the student has earned is shown. This amount is determined by multiplying the percentage of the period completed by the amount of Title IV that was, or could have been, disbursed.

Step 4: Title IV Aid to be Disbursed or Returned

Step 4 of the R2T4 Wizard displays the amount that is eligible for post-withdrawal disbursement OR the amount of Title IV to be returned.

Step 5: Institutional Charges

While processing the R2T4, if the calculation has resulted in a required refund from the school (from Box K), the user must manually add the institutional charges in Step 5 of the R2T4 Wizard.

Step 6 – 10: Amounts of Funds to be Returned

The remaining steps of the R2T4 Wizard display the amounts of funds to be returned by the school and/or the student. Amounts in the R2T4 worksheet are available for inclusion in the R2T4 communication template.

Once the R2T4 is finalized, if the result is a refund, Regent Award adjusts the award to the new amount. The next export to COD/ EST process run for negative transactions will pick up the refund amount. 

Inadvertent Overpayments 

An Inadvertent Overpayment (IOP) is a disbursement that occurs at a time when the student is no longer enrolled and is thus ineligible for a disbursement. For example, the student withdrew on Friday and the disbursement posted Monday prior to processing of the withdrawal. Regent Award provides two options for identifying a disbursement as an IOP: Date of Determination (DOD) or Withdrawal Date (WDD) (based on the configuration item "Date Used to Identify R2T4 Inadvertent Overpayments"). When the school takes attendance, the WDD is typically the preferred option. Regent Award also provides a configuration option for whether the disbursement is considered an IOP on or after OR only after the date used to identify the disbursement as an IOP (as a sub-option of “Date Used to Identify R2T4 Inadvertent Overpayments”).

In the event the disbursement release is identified as an IOP, the disbursement is included as an inadvertent overpayment in the R2T4 Wizard. These are treated as “could have been disbursed” in the R2T4 formulas. Because of this, if the inadvertent overpayment is calculated as “earned” the IOP will appear on the PWD tab.

Any remaining inadvertent overpayments, not included as a PWD, are canceled and returned to their fund programs on the next EST after R2T4 finalization. The award amounts for the R2T4 period are reduced to exclude these returned inadvertent overpayments when the R2T4 is finalized. Any Title IV awards not included in the R2T4, e.g. a loan originated after the withdrawal date, must be manually canceled unless "Auto Cancelation of Title IV Disbursements" is configured.  Refer to the Auto Cancelation of Title IV Disbursements section in this wiki page.  Award amounts on the Academic Plan for the R2T4 period (and for the full AY for non-term) already disbursed and not refunded (plus any PWD amounts) are locked to prevent repackaging from increasing the awards until the R2T4 is reversed. 

Post-Withdrawal Disbursement

Regent Award has built-in logic that will determine whether or not a PWD is eligible to be offered to the student.  Once the determination is made that the R2T4 calculation results in a PWD, Regent Award will evaluate each individual PWD disbursement to determine if it can or cannot be offered to the student, and then automatically provide the result of that evaluation on the PWD tab.  The features described in this section apply to all R2T4s that result in a PWD, both automated and manual.

Do Not Offer Scenarios

If Regent Award determines the disbursement is not eligible to be offered as a PWD, the "Do Not Offer" checkbox will be selected and the "Result Reason" will populate.  The following three "rules" are checked against each PWD disbursement, in the order listed.  If a PWD should not be offered due to one of these rules, additional rules will not be checked.

1. 30 Day Hold – 1st Time – PWD Direct Loan:
   
   • If the student did not attend for a full 30 days prior to the WDD/DOD and is a first-time borrower, the disbursement is considered a 30-day Hold and will not be offered to the student as a PWD.
2. Second/Subsequent Disbursement – PWD Direct Loan:
   • If a disbursement is a second or a subsequent disbursement for the loan, whether it's an IOP or non-IOP, regardless of which payment period in the AY it falls into, it cannot be offered to the student as a PWD.  A student can only be disbursed a second/subsequent disbursement if the student completed the payment period. 
3. Not At Least Half-Time for PP – PWD Direct Loan:
   • The student did not attend at least Half Time Program Applicable and Remedial Attended Units for the PP (would apply to term only because nonterm is always considered fulltime) 
     

If Regent Award determines the disbursement is an eligible PWD fund, but the school does not wish to offer the disbursement as a PWD, the user must manually edit the PWD form and select the "Do Not Offer" checkbox and select "Other" from the "Result Reason" field. However, it is important to note that once the R2T4 has been finalized, the "Do Not Offer" checkbox and "Reason" fields are no longer editable.  If the "Do Not Offer" checkbox is selected, Regent Award will cancel/return the disbursement on the next BP/EST run.

Offered PWD Scenarios

When a disbursement is offered as a PWD (whether as an Inadvertent Overpayment (IOP) or a Non-Inadvertent Overpayment (Non-IOP), Regent Award will populate the "Actual Cancel Date" and the "Deadline for student and/or parent to respond" fields based on the "Offset to Establish Fund Auto-Cancellation Date" and "Offset to Establish PWD Response Deadline". The dates entered here will be the R2T4 Finalization Date + the number of offset days.  See /wiki/spaces/REM/pages/7012815

If the student accepts the PWD Disbursement, the user must edit the PWD form to enter an amount in the "Net Accepted Amount" field and update the "PWD Response Date" field with today's date. Once an amount is entered in the "Net Accepted Amount" and "PWD Response" fields, the "Actual Cancel Date" will be cleared and the disbursement will be paid on the next BP/EST run. If the student partially accepts the PWD Disbursement, the user is expected to update the "Net Accepted Amount" field with the amount accepted by the student and the "PWD Response Date" field with today's date. The "Actual Cancel Date" will subsequently be cleared. Regent Award will then modify the disbursement based on the amount entered in the "Net Amount Accepted" field and will disburse on the next BP/EST run. If the student declines the funds, the user is expected to update the "Actual Cancel Date" to today's date. The fund will be canceled on the next BP/EST run. If there is no response from the student before the "Actual Cancel Date", the disbursement will be canceled and the adjustment will be made on the next BP/EST run.

Prior to the 4.8.0.0 release of Regent Award, an auto-assigned, blocking PWD document prevented PWD disbursements from being paid until the student accepted the disbursement.  This document is no longer necessary - so schools no longer need this document configured.  Regent Award will automate the disbursement and cancellation of PWD funds based on the data entered by the user.  and the configuration options at the Institution, Campus, and Program levels (see /wiki/spaces/REM/pages/7012815). 

Once all disbursements involved in the PWD are paid or canceled, Regent Award will set a flag to stop checking the PWD form for pending payments and cancellations (from an RNA perspective). This flag will lock down the PWD Tab from any further editing of the form.

PWD Workflow

PWDs Created Prior to Release 4.8.0.0

For existing R2T4's that result in a PWD (created prior to the Release 4.8.0.0 upgrade) that are in a Finalized status, Regent Award will not display the PWD information at the Disbursement level. These PWD's will be reflected at the Award level as they were reflected prior to Release 4.8.0.0. These PWD's will always be available to edit. If these PWD's were marked as "Do Not Offer" with a result reason of MPN or Entrance Counseling, which were both removed in the 4.8 Release, users will still be able to see the MPN or Entrance Counseling result status while "viewing" the PWD. If the user "Edits" the PWD, the results reasons of "MPN" and "Entrance Counseling" will be updated to a result reason of "Other" with a note appended to the PWD comments field:

• For PWD records that were using "Missing MPN" will be updated to "Other," and the following text will be appended to the comment: Disbursements previously set to a Do Not Offer Reason of "Missing MPN" were updated by the system to "Other."  
• For PWD records that were using "No Entrance Counseling" will be updated to "Other," and the following text will be appended to the comment: Disbursements previously set to a Do Not Offer Reason of "No Entrance Counseling" were updated by the system to "Other."

Additionally, if the user "Edits" these prior Finalized PWDs, Regent Award will not display the manual icon for any field that is updated by the user.  These PWDs will need to continue to utilize the PWD Document to block and release disbursements. 

For existing R2T4's that result in a PWD (created prior to the Release 4.8.0.0 upgrade) that are NOT in a Finalized status, they will be able to take advantage of all of the new features available for PWDs in 4.8.0.0.

R2T4 Reversal

Nonterm Programs

When a student withdraws and returns to the same program within 180 days, the R2T4 must be reversed manually using the R2T4 Wizard, and the student retains his/her original eligibility for the same period as though attendance did not cease.

Regent Award provides the ‘Review Re-entry LT 180 days’ task to identify nonterm students returning within the 180-day window. Once the R2T4 is reversed, the type and amount of aid for which the student was eligible before the student ceased attendance will be re-instated. A newly scheduled disbursement will be created when the student is packaged and the scheduled dates will align with the configured disbursement schedule. Once the student has met the disbursement requirements, the funds will be released.

Regent Award extends the period to accommodate the period of non-enrollment. The R2T4 reversal record is maintained in Regent Award in a unique record in the database and accessible on the R2T4 screen.

Term-Based Programs

When a student withdraws from and returns to a term-based program, the student returns to a new term and therefore the R2T4 should not be reversed. If a student withdraws and returns to the same term from which he/she withdrew, the R2T4 should be reversed.

A new scheduled disbursement will be created when the student is packaged and the scheduled dates will align with the configured disbursement schedule. Once the student has met the disbursement requirements, the funds will be released.

Auto Cancellation of Title IV Disbursement Excluded During the R2T4 Period

Regent Award has the capability to automatically cancel Title IV disbursements for an R2T4 period that are excluded from the R2T4 calculation, except for Federal Work Study. If this setting is enabled, disbursements in the R2T4 award period, that are in a scheduled status and excluded from the R2T4 calculation will be canceled and disbursements in a paid status will be refunded. 

When an R2T4 is finalized, and Auto-Cancel Excluded Title IV Disbursements for R2T4 is turned on, all eligible Title IV funds (except FWS) for the R2T4 period that were not included in the R2T4 calculation are automatically set to zero.

1. For non-term, all loans in the AY will be canceled if the R2T4 was for the first payment period.
2. For term, if the student has eligibility in a future term, Regent Award adjusts the loan period such that the R2T4 term, and the future terms are in different loan periods, but leaves the award in place for the future terms.  The loan can be valid for future terms, should the student attend.
3. This feature applies to clock-hour calculations for R2T4s.
4. When the R2T4 result is “No Action Required” (No Refund/No PWD), Regent Award will not zero-out any excluded funds in the R2T4 period. 
5. When the R2T4 result is "Refund" or "PWD," Regent Award will automatically cancel paid and unpaid Title IV awards (except FWS) that were not included in the R2T4 calculation.
   1. Excluded unpaid disbursements must be canceled, and excluded paid disbursements will be canceled and refunded.
   2. This applies to BOTH manual and non-manual Title IV awards (except FWS).
6. If a Refund or PWD R2T4 is Reversed, previously auto-canceled Title IV disbursements are reinstated for the payment period if the student is eligible for those awards/disbursements upon return to school.

This configuration is available at the Institution, Campus and Program setup levels, and is also available to override on a per-student basis directly on the R2T4 tab of the R2T4 Wizard for users with the appropriate permissions to access the override.

Immediately after the R2T4 is finalized, Regent Award will automatically cancel scheduled awards.  Paid disbursements will be refunded once the EST/ COD process is completed.   

Manual Awards

Regent Award will adjust manual awards during an R2T4 period since the R2T4 is making the change. For example, $2000 Unsub (manual award) disbursed and is included in the R2T4 calculation. The calculation determined that $1000 Unsub needs to be returned. Regent Award will adjust the award upon finalizing the R2T4 to the "new" amount, $1000 in this case.