A special "180-day rule" applies to students in nonterm programs. A student who has not been in attendance for 180 days or longer is required to return to school in a new Academic Year and any prior Academic Years closed. Nonterm programs have Academic Years and Payment Periods that depend on the student's course data and defined Academic Year length; see Time Periods in Regent Award. The 180 Day Rule only applies to nonterm programs; it does not apply to term-based programs.

Gaps in Attendance

Nonterm students are considered to be enrolled in their programs while they are still registered for any program-applicable course with attendance.

If a nonterm student has a gap in attendance of 180 days or more, the system marks the payment period and Academic Year as closed by the 180-day rule (including prior programs). The nonterm payment period is closed and the payment period's end date will no longer change.

The 180-day closure applies when 180 days of no attendance have elapsed after the latter of:

• the withdrawal date of any withdrawn, attempted, program applicable course; or
• the course end date of any non-withdrawn, program applicable, attended course.  

A course is considered to have attendance upon receipt of any of the following: a Last Attended Date (lastAttendedDate is not null); or the Attendance flag is true (attendanceYN=1); or the course is successfully completed (completedYN=1 and qualityPoints > 0). The course must be eligible for Title IV aid, i.e., it must be program applicable, cannot be a Disqualified Repeat, etc.

For example, a student's last course with attendance ended on June 30. The student does not enroll in any new courses or the student registers in new courses but does not have any attendance posted for those courses. The period of non-attendance extends from July 1 through December 27 (180 days). When the student is packaged on or after December 28, the student now has more than 180 days with no attendance, so Regent Award will close the payment period and AY due to the 180-day rule.

If the Regent Award closes the first payment period in a nonterm Academic Year because of the 180-day rule, Regent Award also marks the second payment period as closed due to the 180-day rule. That second payment period is also marked as Historic. See Historic Terms and Payment Periods.

If a student successfully completes the first payment period in a nonterm academic year (i.e., the units and weeks are met, and all courses are marked as Completed and have positive Quality Points), but the student does not have attendance in any courses for 180 days in the second payment period, then the 180-day closure applies to that unattended second payment period. 

Reentry

If the student begins attending a new nonterm course 181 days or later following the period of no attendance, the student must start a new Academic Year, regardless if it is the same program or a different program. Regent Award will create a new Academic Year beginning on the new course's start date. The end date of the previous, closed payment period(s) and academic year will not change.

If a student returns to a nonterm payment period (in the same or a substantially equal program) and resumes attendance within the 180 days, the current payment period, and all future payment periods and academic years are pushed out to adjust for the newly extended payment period. The period of non-attendance is treated as a student-level break for R2T4. The system determines the Academic Year and Payment Period dates using the non-term Academic Plan Payment Period Projection Method configured in Program Setup. 

180-Day Marker

The Academic Plan displays a visual indicator of "180" on affected Payment Periods, next to the affected Payment Period name. When the mouse hovers over the "180" icon, the system shows an explanation, "Closed due to a 180-Day Rule. This Payment Period was closed due to a 180-day gap in enrollment. Regent Award will not anticipate the academic plan for this student. When registered courses are received by Regent Award for this student, Regent Award will resume packaging."

Anticipation

Academic Plans are not anticipated for students whose last enrollment was closed due to a 180-day break unless the student has new registration.  The payment period remains at the configured length (e.g., 15 weeks for a 30 week AY).