Financial Aid Attendance/Withdrawal Policies

Loan Eligibility and Less than Half-Time Enrollment

Students must be enrolled for at least half time (six credit hours or a part-time co-op) to be eligible for loans. Any time a Stafford loan-borrowing student withdraws to less than half time, takes off a semester, or enrolls for less than six credit hours, federal regulations require the student to complete exit counseling.

Even if the student intends to return to Cincinnati State with at least six credit hours, the student’s repayment deferment time period begins when enrollment is less than six credit hours, and exit counseling is required. Students may complete exit counseling at www.studentloans.gov.

Non-Attendance of Classes

• Instructors are required to document student attendance in each course section for all class sessions held during the first two weeks of the semester. For courses that do not meet for the full semester (i.e., flexibly scheduled course sections) the attendance reporting period will vary based on the course’s structure. Please consult the College’s Important Dates chart (in the Calendars section of the College website), or the Office of the Registrar for information on when non-attendance is reported for these courses.
• From the first day of the semester until the First Day to Withdraw for the semester, students who drop a course must identify if they attended the course section.
• A student who enrolls in a course but does not attend the course during the stated no-show period will be designated a No Show (NS) and dropped from the course after the instructor reports non-attendance.
• If there is a discrepancy between a student’s self-reported attendance status and the attendance status reported by an instructor, the attendance status reported by the instructor will be the status of record.
• Students are not permitted to begin attending a course section after an NS has been issued or has been self-reported by the student for that course section.
• The designation of NS will not appear on the student’s transcript.
• A student who receives an NS designation for a course is still financially responsible for payment for the course. State and federal financial aid is not applicable to a course for which a student has received an NS designation.
• A student is not permitted to withdraw from a course he or she did not attend or to which an NS has been assigned.

A student who receives what he or she believes is an incorrect NS designation for one or more classes may ask for a determination that this was an institutional error. Students who have been incorrectly marked with NS must wait until passing grades have posted to their academic record in order for the Office of Financial Aid to adjust the student aid for that semester.

If a student receiving Title IV aid receives an NS designation for one or more classes and does not receive an earned grade (such as an A, B, C, etc.) on completion of a class, no financial aid will be disbursed for such classes.

Policy on Failure to Complete All Classes in a Semester (for Federal Financial Aid Recipients)

Federal Department of Education regulations require students to earn their eligibility for Title IV funds through attendance in classes. If a financial aid recipient ceases to be enrolled prior to the end of the semester, the student’s eligibility for Title IV funding must be recalculated. The recalculation process may require that portions of the Title IV funding be returned to the funding source. Such students are subject to a financial aid re-calculation and must return a pro-rated portion of their financial aid to the Department of Education, leaving the student with a bill due to the College.