Students may ONLY receive a Pell Grant at one school at one time.  Students may transfer their Pell Grant between schools if they transfer schools.  Thus, a student who is attending Twin Rivers Adult School and American River College at the same time, must choose which school they wish to administer their Pell Grant.

Transferring to an Entirely Different Program

Students who transfer to a different program that does not share any of the same coursework.  (For example, transferring from the Medical Billing & Coding Program to the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning / Refrigeration Program, for Pell Grant purposes, will be considered withdrawn from their first program, and newly enrolled in the second program.

Transferring to a Similar Program

In some circumstances, students who transfer from one program to another that share the same core courses, for Pell Grant purposes, may be considered to be in the new program from the time of original enrollment.   For instance, a student who was in the Certified Nurse Assistant with LVN Prep Program who had only taken Intro to Health Informatics and Medical Terminology, and who has decided to switch to the Medical Billing & Coding Program, may be considered enrolled in the Medical Billing & Coding Program for the entire length, due to the fact that Intro to Health Informatics and Medical Terminology are identical requirements for the Medical Billing & Coding Program.

Twin Rivers Adult School will evaluate a students academic progress at the end of each federal payment period.  Students may refer to their Award Letter and schedule to know when their payment periods occur, as they vary based upon specific program schedules.  At the time of evaluation students must have a GPA of at least 2.0 ("C" average).  Students must also be on pace to graduate within at least 150% of the time-frame (in hours) required to graduate from their program. We calculate the pace at which students are progressing by dividing the total number of hours the students have successfully completed by the total number they have attempted.

Financial Aid Warning & Loss of Financial Aid

Students not meeting the above requirements after their first payment period, will be given a Financial Aid Warning.  Students who fail to make satisfactory progress after the warning period lose their aid eligibility unless they successfully appeal and are placed on probation.

Appealing

When a student loses FSA eligibility because they failed to make satisfactory progress, they may appeal that result on the basis of: their injury or illness, the death of a relative, or other special circumstances. This appeal must explain why the student failed to make satisfactory progress and what has changed in their situation that will allow them to make satisfactory progress at the next evaluation.

Please Note: In most situations where students are not attending sufficiently or not getting a sufficient grade, Twin Rivers Adult School's policy about Required Grades and Attendance for Continuing Enrollment will take effect sooner than the policy for Satisfactory Academic Progress required for Pell Grants.   And by Twin Rivers Adult School's policy about Required Grades and Attendance for Continuing Enrollment, students will be withdrawn from their programs if they do not maintain a 2.0 GPA ("C) and 90% attendance.   Students who are withdrawn from a program, will automatically lose financial aid eligibility.

Students who wish to take time off from school or need to take time off from school are advised to get a custom schedule of classes for their program to accommodate such a request.   Twin Rivers Adult School does not offer federally defined leaves of absences.

Students who withdraw from a program, should follow the procedures listed in the Student Handbook, and are highly encouraged to talk with the Financial Aid office before making their decision. 

Federal Rules dictate that any student receiving a Pell Grant who withdraws from their program, must have a Return to Title IV (R2T4) calculation done.  This calculation will determine how much Pell Grant a student has received, and then will determine based upon Twin Rivers Adult School's Refund Policy, how much money the student may owe the school or the government.  Or, in some cases the student and/or school may receive a final Post-Withdrawal Disbursement.

A student's withdrawal date for the purpose of calculating repayment will be:

• The date the student provides notification in writing (drop card) to the Admissions and Records office of his/her intent to withdraw, or,
• The date posted by the instructor indicating the student's last date of attendance in class.

The Financial Aid Office will identify all students who completely withdraw. According to the day a student withdraws, the Financial Aid Office will calculate the part of the grant "earned" and the part of the grant that was "unearned". The Financial Aid Office will then calculate the amount of aid owed back according to the Federal Regulations.

NOTE: If students withdraws after 60% of the total hours of a program, they do not owe any repayment.

Students will be billed for the amount of Federal Aid they are required to repay. If a student fails to repay the debt due, the student will be reported to the Department of Education. Students owing a grant repayment are not eligible for any federal financial aid until the debt is repaid. This includes all schools.

If a student withdraws from a program (officially or unofficially) for any reason, the following process occurs to determine refund amounts:

1. The total hours a student could have attended is calculated for the enrollment period. (Generally the enrollment period is the entire length of the program, except in the case of LVN)
2. Pell payments are pro-rated based on the number of clock hours the student could have attended as of the official date of withdrawal, based upon our master "visual" matrix of programs.
3. An R2T4 Calculation is done to determine whether money is owed to the federal government, or whether there are funds the student earned in Pell Grant, that have not yet been disbursed, and can be gained through a Post Withdrawal Disbursement (PWD).
4. After the R2T4 Calculation, Twin Rivers Adult Schools refund policy is applied to courses the student did not take, to determine how much the student owes (if the student did not use enough Pell Grant to pay for the program) or whether the student will receive a refund check.  It may take up to 2 weeks for students to receive refund checks.
    

The following are our definition of Academic Years for Different Programs.  In general, Academic Years only affect Pell Grant Awards, and do not necessarily have much relevancy outside of computing Pell Grants.

* - Different cohorts that have different scheduling patterns are considered different versions of the same program, and may have slightly different academic years defined for each pattern of scheduling.

The calculations used in determining how much Pell Grant funding a student receives are a little complex.  But they are what is required of our school from the U.S. Department of Education.  The following is our official policy and procedure about how we award Pell Grants:

1. Every program has an academic year defined in hours and weeks.  This definition can vary for a program that has 2 different versions, for instance a day and a night program, or a full-time and part-time program, or for programs that have courses happen in difference sequencing from each other.
    
2. Each academic year of a program is divided into 2 payment periods, where the 2nd payment period does not occur until after 50% of the weeks AND hours have occurred from the student.  Payment Periods should NOT be confused with disbursements.  They are merely a period of time when payments can be made.  Twin Rivers Adult School disburses at the end of every session, which is usually every 6 weeks. (Vacation periods can lengthen this time.)
    
3. For programs less than a single academic year, the 2nd payment period starts when 50% of the weeks and hours of the program have occurred. For instance, CNA with LVN prep is usually a 772 hour program that runs 24 weeks (unless a student transfers in courses such as already having their CNA, in which case the program is even shorter.)  So in this instance, the 2nd payment period will not start until after 12 weeks AND 386 hours have been attended.  NOTE: As will be shown later, because this program is less than an academic year, students will NOT receive a full Pell Grant.
    
4. For programs greater than a single Academic Year, the second Academic Year will have either 1 or 2 payment periods, depending upon whether the amount of time in the 2nd Academic Year is less than 50% of the academic year definition, and if it is, then it only has 1 payment period.  If the period remaining in the 2nd Academic Year is greater than 50% of the definition of the academic year, it will be divided into 2 payment periods (following the same basic principles as have been discussed above.)
    
5. After determining each payment periods start, end, and duration in weeks and hours, specific award amounts will be calculated for each payment period.  Note: As will be demonstrated, depending upon scheduling, these award amounts may cause different students in the same program to receive different amount of Pell Grants, because their classes vary in the order they are taken.
    
6. To determine how much a student receives in Pell Grant funding for a payment period, the weeks of the payment period are divided by the weeks of the defined academic year, and the hours of the payment period are divided by the hours of the academic year, whichever is less is the ratio of funds from the award year's Pell Grant that can be disbursed in that payment period.   Because some programs have more hours that occur towards the end of the program with internships/externships, program will often have the first payment period end after the 50% mark of the weeks, and in some cases, because of this calculation, may not have ratios that add up to 100%.
    
7. Based upon the previous calculations that determines what can be disbursed within the payment period, Twin Rivers Adult School determines the disbursement amounts.   In general, based upon the ratios of payment periods to academic years that were determined above, a fraction of tuition and fees will be taken within that payment period.   The rest of the money left will be disbursed to students in even increments based upon the number of disbursements available within the payment period.   So for instance, a student who has 3 disbursements within a payment period where they have $900 left of their Pell Grant, will get $300 per disbursement.    Twin Rivers Adult School does not generally disburse on the last session of a students program (unless that session is the only session within a payment period.)  Thus most of the time in the last payment period, students receive higher disbursements but less of them.  So, if during the second payment period a student had $900 left, and 3 sessions, they would get paid over the first 2 sessions of that period, thus getting $450 at the end of every session.

While we recognize that the above policies and procedures are complex, they are what are required of us to follow the Federal Regulations required of us, and thus we are not in a position to simplify them with the clock-hour structure that we have. 

You may find out more information by reading the Financial Aid Handbook from the U.S. Department of Education.

By Federal rules, a student who has a payment period that crosses from one Award Year into another (crosses the from June to July) is allowed to use either Award Year, as long as no more than 6 months of a payment period is in one of the Award Years.  Twin Rivers Adult School is legally obligated to give students the best award.  When the award is the same between the two years, Twin Rivers Adult School will generally give students funds from the earlier year's award to save them their upcoming funds.