Remedial and Repeat Units

Repeat Course Requirements

A "Repeat" course occurs whenever a student retakes or repeats the same course more than once. For example, a student might pass a class with a "D." The student might take the same class again as a Repeat, to try to earn a better grade. In Regent Award, repeated courses are identified and grouped together using the Course ID and the "Repeat" flag provided on the SBL. Regent Award then analyzes repeated courses to identify which course(s) are eligible for Title IV funding. Any repeats over the allowed limits are automatically marked as Disqualified Repeats.

Regent Award uses the following repeat policy:

When a student passes the course and earns Quality Points, Regent Award starts counting the number of qualified repeats.

  • The earliest passed course, completed with non-zero Quality Points, is counted as the first successfully completed course.
  • After the first passed course, Title IV repeat limits apply:
    • Term-based programs, other than Subscription Periods: Only one allowed completed Repeat course, regardless of whether the course is passed the second time. Withdrawals are not counted toward the repeat limit.
    • Non-Term and Subscription Period programs: No allowed Repeat courses. All repeats are disqualified.


Repeated Courses: Courses with the Same Course ID 

Regent Award considers all of a student's courses sharing the same Course ID value, to have the same course content. If two courses have different content (for Title IV purposes), they should use different Course IDs when provided on the SBL.

Regent Award checks for possible repeats (multiple courses with the same course ID value) whenever a course is marked as having a repeat. For example, if an SBL is imported with a course marked repeat=”true” (displayed as a "SIS Repeat" on the /wiki/spaces/REM/pages/7012969), Regent Award goes through all the student's courses and finds all courses with that same Course ID value. Regent Award then sorts the courses to determine which are eligible for Title IV funding. Regent Award puts the courses in order by program start date, program creation in Regent Award, course end date, completed status (true first), course start date, SIS internal transfer (counting true first), and course creation in Regent Award. The ordering determines which courses are eligible for Title IV funding, and which (if any) are Disqualified Repeats.

A student must have at least one course flagged with SIS repeat = "true" for Regent Award to check for possible repeated instances of that course ID value.

Courses Not Counted for Repeat Limits

There are instances when courses do not count toward the Title IV Repeat limits. Those instances include:

  • External Transfer courses
  • Withdrawn courses (having a withdrawal date) Note, if a Withdrawn course would already have been Disqualified, it will still be marked as a Disqualified Repeat. 
  • Courses with zero Quality Points, taken before the student passes the course.
  • Courses in non-primary programs (that were never actually active) are not counted toward Repeat limits. 

Repeat Limits by Program Type

When the student first passes a course and earns positive Quality Points, Regent Award starts counting the number of qualified repeats.

After the first passed course, Title IV repeat limits apply:

  • Term-based programs, other than Subscription Period programs: Only one allowed Repeated course is funded to completion, regardless of whether that second completed course is passed.
    • If a repeated term-based course is withdrawn (not completed), then that withdrawn course does not count toward the repeat limit. The student may repeat the course again after the withdrawal. The student would receive Title IV funding for that future repeat course.
    • If the repeated term-based course is completed, but the student does not earn Quality Points for that second try, then that completed, failed repeat course does still count toward the repeat limit. The student cannot receive additional funding to take the same course a third time or more.
    • Any subsequent repeats after two completed courses are Disqualified and ineligible for Title IV financial aid. 
  • Nonterm and Subscription Period programs: No allowed Repeat courses. A student may only complete a course once for a given Course ID value. All additional, repeated courses with that same Course ID value are Disqualified and ineligible for Title IV financial aid.

Any additional repeats after the limits are met are Disqualified Repeat courses including all future attempts of the course, regardless of any withdrawal or completion status. Disqualified Repeat courses cannot receive Title IV funding.


Internal Transfer Repeats and External Course ID

Internal Transfer courses are counted toward the Qualified Repeat limits. Regent Award looks for a shared Course ID and the Repeat flag, like non-Transfer courses. However, for Internal Transfer courses imported on the SBL, Regent Award also uses the External Course ID to identify any duplicate courses. For example, a student might have multiple program changes. The same course might appear several times, as an Internal Transfer course in each program. Each unique External Course ID would be counted only once

Program Changes

Regent Award counts repeated courses regardless of a student's program. For example, a student might take ECON101, have a program change, and repeat ECON101 (with the same Course ID) again in the new program. When any ECON101 (with the same Course ID) course is flagged as a SIS Repeat (or Repeat Override), Regent Award will mark both ECON101 courses as a Regent Award-Calculated Repeat. Both courses would count toward the allowed Repeat limits.  

If an Internal Transfer course appears in two different programs, the Program with the earliest Start Date takes precedence. Sometimes, an Internal Transfer course is not associated with any active Program. For example, Internal Transfers might be loaded for a program change from years ago, before a school started using Regent Award. When the Internal Transfer courses do not have any associated program, Regent Award uses the earliest program's start date.  

Older Repeat Policies

Course Repeat Policy - Undergraduate Prior to FAY 2011-2012

For courses prior to FAY 2011-2012, schools can configure the Course Repeat policy in /wiki/spaces/REM/pages/7012815.

  • ALL repeat courses taken prior to 07/01/2011 are counted as qualified Repeats. After 07/01/2011 the student is eligible to receive Financial Aid for two more qualified repeats total, including those taken prior to 07/01/2011.  "including?"  
  • OR, Only the repeat courses up until the first course with quality points > 0 AND completed = true are counted as qualified Repeats. After 07/01/2011 the student is eligible to receive Financial Aid for one more repeat (if they had any prior to 07/01/2011).  

Course Repeat Policy - Graduate Prior to July 1, 2016

Prior to July 1, 2016, the Department of Education allowed unlimited Repeats for Graduate programs. Starting July 1, 2016, graduate Repeats are limited with the same Repeat restrictions as undergraduate programs.  

Data Assumptions

There are numerous data assumptions needed for repeat and remedial logic in Regent Award.

  1. The Course Level Repeat flag is to be set by the SIS in the SBL file - Regent Award will not set this flag
  2. Regent Award assumptions regarding the receipt of data from the SIS:
    • Course data will contain a course where repeat = false (the assumption here is that the first time the student takes a course, the SIS would not know that the course will later be repeated)
    • The SIS will mark any later occurrences of the course as Repeat = true
    • When a course is flagged as a repeat, Regent will use the CourseID+ProgramID+Student to locate and match other instances of the course to determine how many times the course has been repeated. The number of times that a student may repeat a course does not reset when the student changes programs.
  3. When repeat = true on the CourseData level:
    • Regent Award will determine all the repeat instances of the same Course Id that exist
    • Regent Award will ignore all withdrawn courses

    • Regent Award will ignore External Transfer courses
    • Regent Award will ignore courses with 0 units


Remedial Course Requirements

Remedial courses are courses that prepare a student for a program of study. A student solely enrolled in remedial coursework is not eligible for Title IV aid, however, if a student is enrolled in an eligible program which contains some remedial coursework, he/she can be considered a regular student and potentially eligible for Title IV aid, even if he/she is taking all remedial courses before taking any regular courses.

Regent Award assumes that remedial courses are not program applicable. A course that is flagged as both remedial = true and program applicable = true is to be treated as a "normal" program applicable course (i.e. this course does not count towards the Remedial Qualified Units/Weeks). 

If a course is transfer = true, remedial = true, and program applicable = false then it will be summed up at the program level and added to the total remedial qualified units to determine if the student has reached their Program AY unit limit of remedial qualified units. 

Counting Qualified Remedial Unit Totals

Term Specific Remedial Counts

If a course was withdrawn AFTER the census date, it counts toward the census remedial total (for term-based programs only). Only remedial units that were withdrawn BEFORE or ON the census date are disregarded (not included in any remedial counts).

If a course is a disqualified repeat, it is not counted in the remedial course unit summation (If a course is repeatDisqualifed=true then that is considered the same as remedialDisqualified = true). It will NOT count toward ANY remedial qualified or program applicable total and is treated the same as a non-program applicable course.  On the CourseData record for Term programs:

  • If the Enrolled Date is <= the Census Date, then the units DO count in the remedial total count
  • If the Enrolled Date it NOT <= the Census Date, then they do NOT count in the remedial qualified count.

If the student enrolls in a course prior to the census date, Regent Award counts the remedial units in determining totalQualifiedRemedial units;  If the student enrolls after the census date, Regent Award does not count the course toward the totalQualifiedRemedial units because the student will not receive Title IV awarding for the course due to enrolling after the census date. 

Remedial Limits

Remedial courses that are "Calculated Internal Transfers" are considered toward the remedial unit limit and unit totals. Remedial external transfer and SIS specified internal transfer remedial courses are not considered for any unit totals.

Students are allowed to take a total Remedial unit count up to the related Program AY Unit total based on the Academic Unit Type:

Unit Type

Remedial AY Units

Semester Credit

30

Quarter Credit

45

Credit Hour Clock Hour Conversion Semester Credit

30

Credit Hour Clock Hour Conversion Quarter Credit

45

Clock Hour

900


Nonterm Specific Remedial Counts

  • Withdrawn nonterm remedial courses are not counted towards the remedial unit limit.
  • Withdrawn courses (regardless of dates) are not counted in the totalRemedialQualifiedUnits unit sum.

Partial Remedials

Partial remedials are not being awarded/handled in an automated way in Regent Award.

  • Only the remedial courses that relate to the qualified total are considered.
  • Any course over the limit will be marked as 'remedialDisqualified = true' and those units/weeks will not be counted toward any CE total.
  • Units for a course must count as a total
    • Example: if there are 6 remaining remedial units and two 4 unit remedial courses are imported, only one course will count toward the student’s qualified remedial total, and there will then be 2 remaining remedial units left
  • If another course can be used for the remaining units then it will be used otherwise all future remedial courses will be marked as 'remedialDisqualified = true' and their units/weeks will not be included in the CE totals (the totalRemedialUnits/Weeks & totalRemedialProgAppUnits/Weeks).