Withdrawals and Refunds
Withdrawing, Dropping, Canceling, or Auditing Classes
It is extremely important that you speak with your Financial Aid Counselor before reducing your enrollment or changing course grading options to audit. Your awards will be canceled or reduced if you fail to maintain required enrollment. Courses that are audited, canceled, dropped, or retroactively dropped do not count toward required enrollment.
If you withdraw from a course with a "W", the withdrawn course can still be counted toward required enrollment levels, but only for the following types of aid: Pell Grant, Academic Competitiveness Grant, SMART Grant, SEOG Grant, Federal Work-Study, Perkins Loan, PLUS Loan, Stafford Loan, UM Grant, Frederick Douglass Grant, the UM Scholarship, Delegate Scholarship, Educational Assistance Grant, Guaranteed Access Grant, Part-time State Grant, and Senatorial Scholarship.
Repeated failure to complete attempted courses can lead to a violation of the Satisfactory Academic Progress policy. Please review this policy before withdrawing from any courses.
Refunds
In order to receive a refund from your student account, you may submit a written refund request to the Office of the Bursar. This can be done by either visiting the Financial Service Center in Room 1135 of the Lee Building and completing a refund request form, by logging onto Student Account Inquiry and completing an online refund request, or by sending a letter or fax requesting a refund. The fax number is (301) 405-0659.
Upon verification by the Refund Unit, refunds are processed in the same manner in which you originally paid. Refund checks are made payable to the student and are mailed from the Bursar's Office. Credit balances attributable to payment made by personal check are subject to a 30-day hold to insure that the check clears the bank before a refund check will be issued. All refund checks are mailed to the permanent address of record.
Students with a credit balance of $250.00 or less are eligible to receive a cash refund, subject to the availability of funds. Please visit the office in-person to obtain a cash refund voucher, and be sure to bring a photo ID with you.
Credit balances attributable to payments made originally by credit card must be refunded back to the card originally charged. Credit card refunds are processed electronically and take about a week after the credit appears on your student account. To assist us in processing your refund request as soon as possible, be sure to include your credit card number and expiration date on your refund request. If you mail your request to our office, a receipt verifying that the refund was processed will be sent to you.
Dates for refund of tuition for withdrawal from all courses
Fall 2008
| Dates | Refund |
| through Sept 1 | 100% |
| Sept 2 - 15 | 80% |
| Sept 16 - 22 | 60% |
| Sept 23 - 29 | 40% |
| Sept 30 - Oct 6 | 20% |
| Oct 7 and later | 0% |
Spring 2009
| Dates | Refund |
| through Jan 25 | 100% |
| Jan 26 - Feb 6 | 80% |
| Feb 7 - 13 | 60% |
| Feb 14 - 20 | 40% |
| Feb 21 - Feb 27 | 20% |
| Feb 28 and later | 0% |
- Students who have made no payment on their account at the time of withdrawal will be billed according to the above schedule.
- Students receiving Title IV funds will have their refunds calculated in accordance with Federal Regulations.
- In computing refunds to students who have scholarships and loans from University funds, the computation will be made in such a way as to return the maximum amount to the scholarship and loan accounts without loss to the University.
- Only amounts in excess of the non-refundable enrollment deposit will be refunded.
- Refund rates are based upon withdrawals confirmed by Records and Registration by close of business on the above dates.
Return of Title IV Funds Policy
The Office of Student Financial Aid is required by federal regulations to recalculate federal financial aid eligibility for students who withdraw, drop out, are dismissed, or take a leave of absence prior to completing 60% of a payment period or term.
The federal Title IV funds below must be recalculated in these situations. Refunds are allocated in the following order:
- Unsubsidized Federal Stafford Loan
- Subsidized Federal Stafford Loan
- Federal Perkins Loan
- Federal PLUS Loan
- Federal Pell grant, if applicable
- Federal ACG grant, if applicable
- Federal SMART grant, if applicable
- Federal SEOG grant, if applicable
Recalculation is based on the percentage of earned aid using the following formula:
Percentage of payment period or term completed = the number of days completed up to the withdrawal date divided by the total days in the payment period or term. (Any break of five days or more is not counted as part of the days in the term.) This percentage is also the percentage of earned aid.
Funds are returned to the appropriate federal program based on the percentage of unearned aid using the following formula:
Aid to be returned = (100% of the aid that could be disbursed minus the percentage of earned aid) multiplied by the total amount of aid that could have been disbursed during the payment period or term.
If a student earned less aid than was disbursed, the institution would be required to return a portion of the funds and the student would be required to return a portion of the funds. Keep in mind that when Title IV funds are returned, the student borrower may owe a debit balance to the institution.
If a student earned more aid than was disbursed to him/her, the institution would owe the student a post-withdrawal disbursement which must be paid within 120 days of the student's withdrawal. The institution must return the amount of Title IV funds for which it is responsible no later than 30 days after the date of the determination of the date of the student's withdrawal.
