Time Periods in Regent Award
- Heather Smith
Overview
This page describes basic time-related concepts in Regent Award.
Introduction
Financial Aid is mainly organized by time. Regent Award uses logic similar to the US Department of Education ("ED"). ED does not award financial aid based on each individual course or every specific cost. Instead, ED groups a student's academic-related costs and Title IV aid into logical chunks. Regent Award and ED both award financial aid using these basic building blocks.
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.
FAY and AY
Regent Award and ED both use two broad categories of awards: FAY-based and AY-based awards. The Fund Setup setting "Fund Scope" determines whether an award from that fund is FAY-based or AY-based.
FAY - Federal Award Year
A Federal Award Year (FAY) is a full 12 month period with fixed calendar dates.
The normal ED FAY starts July 1 of one calendar year and goes through June 30 of the next calendar year.
For example, FAY 2019-2020 is July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020. On July 1, 2020, a new FAY starts for FAY 2020-2021.
FAY based awards are mostly used for grants. Grants are "free" financial aid or "entitlements" that the student does not have to repay. Grants are typically awarded to students who have a low EFC.
Pell Grants are the most common FAY-based aid.
SEOG is another common FAY-based award: Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant, also known as "Federal Supplemental Grant" or "FSEOG." Many schools have custom SEOG logic. SEOG is a "campus-based" award, so it is not sent to COD.
Regent Award's screens often display FAYs using just four digits, showing just the ending year. For example, FAY 2019-2020 is displayed on the Academic Plan as "2020" only.
Alt-FAYs
A special type of FAY is an "Alternative FAY" (Alt-FAY). An Alt-FAY is a full 12-month period that starts in a different month than July. Alt-FAYs vary depending on the fund. For example, some Brandman Guild institutional awards match a "normal" calendar year, January 1 through December 31, which matches the IRS tax year.
AY - Academic Year
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.
SAY
SAY - Scheduled Academic Year / Standard Academic Year: An AY structure that follows the traditional American academic calendar. SAY uses periods of time with fixed start and end dates (terms). The regular SAY dates do not* change based on the student's enrollment pattern.
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 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 https://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/T1LHVb8Z.
Special "AYs" in Regent Award
Regent has some additional, internal AYs in the system. Those AYs do not necessarily directly match ED's FAY or AY time periods.
"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 https://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 https://regenteducation.atlassian.net/l/cp/0vD64DxH.
Enrollments and Enrollment Types
ED groups a student's academic-related activities into chunks of time called enrollment periods or periods of enrollment. Regent Award and ED both award financial aid using these building blocks.
There are three main types of Enrollments: term, nonstandard term, and nonterm enrollments.
Term
Term programs use the term as an enrollment period.
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.
NST
Nonstandard term "NST" programs also use the term as an enrollment period.
In most cases throughout Regent Award, the same logic applies to all term-based programs (including nonstandard term). Generally, term and nonstandard terms will have the same behavior.
"Nonstandard terms" ("NST") are typically shorter than normal terms. The nonstandard terms still have fixed start and end dates set by the school. They are called "nonstandard" or "non-standard" because they do not meet ED's strict requirements for standard terms.
Nonstandard terms generally follow similar awarding behavior to terms, and use BBAY AYs.
Nonstandard terms and AY dates follow normal BBAY rules and AY length.
NST term length calculation can follow the dates, or it can be configured.
Most rules that apply to term programs will also apply to nonstandard term programs.
Nonterm
A third, very different type is nonterm. Nonterm programs define a period of enrollment as a full Academic Year (AY).
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:
Non-Substantially-Equal (NSE) Program Changes can affect the AY dates. See https://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.
Term and nonstandard term programs: One term = One Payment Period.
Example: The "Fall 2019" term is one PP.
Nonterm programs: One PP = one-half of a nonterm AY.
Example: A nonterm Academic Year AY1 has two payment periods: NT_1_PP_1, and NT_1_PP_2
A nonterm AY needs at least one-half the units and one-half the weeks in the first PP_1, and the remaining units and weeks are in PP_2. A nonterm student must successfully meet both the units and the weeks in PP1 before the student can progress to PP2. A nonterm student must also complete all the units and all the weeks in the AY before the student can progress to the next AY.
Course Enrollments
In Regent Award, all non-transfer courses are grouped and linked to PPs using "Course Enrollments" or CEs.
For term and nonstandard term, the External Term ID on the SBL determines which term's CE is linked (regardless of the course's dates).
For nonterm, the CE can continuously adjust.
If a nonterm student fails a course or otherwise does not complete the required units or weeks for a course, the system will change the Payment Period dates as needed so the PP dates still include the full amount of needed units and/or weeks.
CEs and course information are visible on the Program Management Wizard. The CE "roll-up" process sorts courses into CEs. The CE rollup occurs whenever course information is changed (such as loading an SBL). If a user steps through the PMW (even without changes), that also triggers a CE rollup.
Historic Terms and Payment Periods
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 https://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 https://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.
Enrollment levels for term-based programs are configurable in Enrollment Level Setup.
Enrollment Level Abbreviations
LTHT = Less Than Half Time. A student is taking some units, but is not typically eligible for loans or much other financial aid (except Pell).
HT = Half Time. The minimum enrollment level for Federal loans. For example, if full-time is 12 units, then Half-Time is 6 units.
TQT = Three Quarter Time. A student is enrolled more than half time, but not yet full-time. TQT corresponds to roughly 75% of a full-time student's "normal" load.
FT = Full-time. A student is taking at least a full load of classes. For example, if FT is 12 units, a student is taking at least 12 units or more.
Other common abbreviations: ALHT = At Least Half Time (includes HT, TQT, FT). BHT = Below Half-Time. QT = Quarter-Time (similar to LTHT).
Nonterm Enrollment Levels: In Regent Award, for nonterm payment periods, the enrollment level is always Full Time. For example, a nonterm student might complete 22 units in January, 1 unit in February, and 6 units in March. The student's enrollment level would still be FT for the entire payment period.
Award Periods and Loan Periods
Regent Award has Award Periods and Loan Periods. All awards in Regent Award have both an Award Period and a Loan Period.
FAY-based awards such as Pell Grants primarily use the Award Period, which can cross multiple Academic Years.
AY-based awards such as Loans use Loan Periods, which are contained within a single AY.
Award Periods
In Regent Award, an Award Period is a period of time with start and end dates where awards can be created from a fund. An Award Period corresponds to a period of time when a fund can have awards for the PPs covered by the award period.
Award Periods are either FAY-based or AY-based.
FAY-based Award Periods correspond to the fixed FAY dates.
The FAY-based award period dates always start and end with the FAY's start and end dates (usually July 1 to June 30).
A FAY-based award period might include PPs from more than one AY. The main constraint is that the included PP dates must have a PP containing the FAY start date (July 1) and a PP containing the FAY end date (June 30). For example, a 2019-2020 Pell grant has an award period of July 1, 2019 through June 30, 2020.
In the example below, the student's 2020 Pell Grant starts in AY1 in Summer 2019, then continues through AY2 in Summer 2020. The student has a single 2019-2020 FAY-based award period for the Pell grant.
AY-based Award Periods have dates corresponding to an Academic Year on the student's Academic Plan.
The AY-based award periods start and end with the AY start and end dates.
AY-based awards are further divided up into Loan Periods. The loan periods can shift and adjust depending on the pattern of the student's AY-based award amounts.
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).
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.
Loan Periods
Regent Award links every AY-based award to a loan period. A loan period is a set of one or more consecutive payment 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".
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.
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.
Every Academic Year must always have a Default Loan Period, even if the AY does not contain any loans or AY-based awards. If, after packaging, the AY does not already contain a loan period matching the AY start and end dates, Regent Award creates a new, replacement Default Loan Period matching the full AY dates. The Default Loan Period does not necessarily need loan amounts in every payment period, but packaging marks the Default Loan Period with a FAY in the database. The FAY is used as the basis for initially creating all loans in the AY.
Crossover Periods
In Title IV Financial Aid, a crossover period is a period of time (Academic Year, loan period, or payment period) having dates spanning two or more Federal Award Years (FAYs). A FAY starts on July 1 and runs through June 30 of the next calendar year. FAY-based award periods always match a single FAY or Alt-FAY. However, AY-based award periods can cross over multiple FAYs. For example, if a student's Academic Year (AY) contains both June 30, 2019 and July 1, 2020, the AY is a crossover because it "crosses over" FAYs 2018-2019 and 2019-2020. For compliance, a Direct Loan in a crossover loan period is permitted to use any FAY that has at least one day from that FAY within the loan period's dates.
In Regent Award, the starting, former FAY is the prior-year FAY. The second, latter FAY is the next-year FAY.
Pell Crossovers
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".
AY Loan Crossovers
A crossover AY contains both June 30 and July 1 of the same calendar year.
Example Crossover AY: A term-based AY starts May 6, 2019 and ends December 18, 2019. That AY is a crossover. The AY dates include June 30, 2019 (the end date of the 2019-2020 FAY) and July 1, 2019 (the start date of the 2020-2021 FAY). If a student has loans covering the length of this AY, those loans could use an ISIR from either FAY, 2019-2020 or 2020-2021. The system would choose the actual FAY/ISIR depending on the available ISIRs and Regent Award's ISIR Loan Periods and Award Period Precedence Logic.
Example Non-crossover AY: A nonterm AY starts July 1, 2019 and ends January 31, 2020. The AY is not a crossover, because the AY is entirely contained within FAY 2019-2020. The system can only package loans in that AY for FAY 2019-2020, because the AY dates are entirely included in the FAY for 2019-2020.
More extreme non-crossover example: Another nonterm AY starts July 1, 2019 and ends June 30, 2020. The AY is still not a crossover, because the entire AY is within FAY 2019-2020 and matches that FAY's dates.
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.
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.
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.
FAID composition:
First 9 digits: Student's Social Security Number (SSN)
Letter for loan type: S, U, or P - meaning Subsidized, Unsubsidized, or PLUS
Two-digit FAY, for example "20" for FAY 2019-2020
School's FDSL Program ID from Institution Setup, Identifiers tab
Three-digit sequence number for the FAY, such as "001", "002," etc
COD Meta Data
The student's Loans screen displays the "COD Meta Data" or "Award COD Metadata" - the information that Regent will send to COD the next time that loan is exported. The loan period's FAY sets the loan's FAY information for export. COD metadata is stored separately from the main award data in Regent Award. RNA updates the Award COD Metadata during packaging. DEX will then export the data.
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.
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.
