Financial Aid: Statement of Understanding

Owned by Emily Bivona (Deactivated)
Last updated: Sept 22, 2022 by Heather Smith
4 min read

Overview

Schools want the ability to provide students with the information they need to make an informed decision about how much loan money they need to fund their education. An optional means of informing the student is to require that the student acknowledge a Statement of Understanding (SOU) that the loans must be paid back and are the student's responsibility.  The Regent Award and the Student Experience portal allow schools to configure a customized statement to present to students prior to allowing students to accept awards.  


Configuration

There are several configuration items that come into play when presenting a student with an SOU:

Fund Setup

Schools have the configuration option to display the "Statement of Understanding".  When this option is checked, it requires that the student acknowledge a Statement of Understanding prior to being able to view the fund on the Student Experience portal.  This option will display if the fund requires "Active Acceptance" (in an "Offered" status).  

When this option is selected, Regent Award verifies that the school also has a Document configured in Document Setup with the Document Use value "Statement of Understanding - Fund Request." If the document setup does not exist, Regent Award presents the following error and does not allow the option to be selected: A document requirement does not exist to support requiring a student to request funds in the Student Portal.


Document Setup

On the General tab of Document Setup in Regent Award, schools can configure a "Document Use" for the document, in a field labeled "Select the Process that this document facilitates."  In order to utilize the Statement of Understanding feature in Regent Award, schools must configure a document that utilizes the Document Use value of "Statement of Understanding - Fund Request." When selected, the Student Experience portal will use this value to create the document requirement on the student's record in Regent Award in a "Satisfied" status, when the student acknowledges the SOU via the Student Experience Portal.  The document must be configured as student-scoped when using the "Statement of Understanding - Fund Request" Document Use type and is recommended (but not required) to be configured as Office Use Only.  The school may also attach a document template to Document Setup which will then be attached to the student's document requirement at the time the SOU document requirement is assigned to the student.

 

Portal Setup

On the Financial Aid subtab of portal setup, the school can configure two fields for the specific SOU text they want to be presented to the student.  

  • SOU Short Description - The text entered here will display on the Financial Aid component above the "Read Statement of Understanding" button.  If no text is configured here, only the "Read Statement of Understanding" button will be displayed.  
  • Statement of Understanding Text - The text entered here will display as the Statement of Understanding on the Financial Aid screen. Whether or not the Statement of Understanding is displayed is controlled by the Fund-level setting "Statement of Understanding".

Displaying the SOU

If the student has a fund that is configured to display the SOU via the Fund-level setting, the SOU short text will display on the Financial Aid screen, directly below the "Gift Aid" section.  If all loans are configured to require an SOU, then the "Loan" header will not display until the SOU is acknowledged.


When the user clicks "Read Statement of Understanding," the full configured SOU text is displayed. 

When the student selects the "Acknowledge" button on the Statement of Understanding, the configured Document will be assigned to the student in Regent Award in a "Satisfied" status.  The funds that were previously hidden from the student become visible and any available actions can be taken on those funds.  The "Statement of Understanding" will no longer appear on the Financial Aid screen.  If the school configured the SOU document with a document template in Document Setup, that template will then be attached to the student's document requirement at the time the SOU document requirement is assigned to the student.

If the student selects "Cancel", the student is taken to the Financial Aid screen, but the funds that require acknowledgment of the SOU will remain hidden.  The student will continue to be presented with the SOU until it is acknowledged.

The SOU must only be acknowledged once, and the acknowledgment applies to all Academic Years.