Financial aid recipients at Loyola University Chicago are expected to maintain satisfactory academic progress (SAP). All federal and state funds are covered under this policy. Students are reviewed for eligibility outlined in this policy at the end of each semester or quarter.

Overview

At the conclusion of each semester or quarter, and after grades have been officially posted, in accordance with the Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy at Loyola University Chicago.  All students, regardless of financial aid status, are notified of any change to their financial aid eligibility resulting from the satisfactory progress evaluations.

Policy

Reviews are conducted at the end of each academic term, using the grades and enrollment from the first semester attended through the most recent term.

The first review includes all students for compliance with the Qualitative requirements of the Satisfactory Academic Progress policy.  This portion of the program identifies all students who fail to maintain satisfactory Grade Point Average. All students must have a cumulative Grade Point Average of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale. This qualitative requirement is at least as strict as the institutional academic policy.

The second portion provides a review of all students for the Quantitative requirement of the policy, which requires that all undergraduate students maintain a successful completion percentage of at least 66.667% for all attempted coursework. 

• Attempted coursework is defined as any course in which the student is enrolled after the last day to drop without a grade of W. This includes but is not limited to, transfer credit hours, dual credit, and non-degree courses.

• Successfully completed hours are defined as the number of hours in which a student received a grade of A, B, C, D, P, or CR.

• Courses graded as F, I, W, WF, WE, NR or NP will be considered attempted and not completed.

• Withdrawals, emergency withdrawals, F grades, repeated courses, incompletes, missing grades, no grades (NG), no record (NR), and X grades are considered attempted and not completed. Keep in mind that W grades will be included in the calculation, even if the date of withdrawal resulted in no tuition. The University’s policy to assess tuition is separate from the Academic Progress calculation.

The third criterion is that the maximum time frame for which a student may receive financial assistance may not exceed 150% of the published length of the program measured in credit hours.  For instance, if the published length of an academic program is 120 credit hours, the maximum time frame during which a student will be eligible for federal or state financial aid must not exceed 180 total attempted hours (including accepted transfer and advanced placement credit).

Pace is defined as when it is mathematically not possible for a student to have enough credits for a degree by the time the student has reached maximum timeframe, which is usually the result of not meeting the quantitative measurement.

Students who do not meet one or more of the above criteria when reviewed at the end of the payment period are ineligible for financial aid for future payment periods.  Students for whom this is there first semester for not meeting the standards are placed on “WARNING.” This means that the student is still eligible to receive financial aid, but if at the end of the next enrolled term, if still not meeting the standards the student will go to “Not Meeting SAP.” In order to reestablish eligibility, a student may be placed on probation after submitting an appeal, and the appeal being approved by the Director’s Committee.  

Notification to Students

Students who fail to meet either of the Quantitative, Qualitative or Total Hours requirements of the Satisfactory Academic Progress policy are sent a notification email which outlines the specific area of the Satisfactory Academic Progress policy that is deficient and explains that financial aid awards cannot be paid because of this deficiency. 

Appeals

When a student is ineligible for financial aid the student has the option to submit an appeal to be reviewed for financial aid eligibility. The appeal form is located on our website at luc.edu/finaid.

Per the appeal form, the student must explain the extenuating circumstances that prevented the student from meeting the standards of SAP for that specific semester. Some extenuating circumstances can be, but not limited to these are: medical issues for the student or immediate family; death of family member; financial circumstances.  The student is required to submit documentation to support the circumstances. The student must also explain what changes will be made going forward to ensure that SAP is being met. If the student has appealed before, the circumstances cannot be the same circumstances used from previous appeals. The student is required to meet with an academic advisor to develop an academic plan. The academic advisor is required to sign the appeal form. If the student is not meeting pace or maximum timeframe a degree audit will be required for the appeal.

DEADLINES

The deadline for each semester is listed on the appeal form and is updated each academic year.

Appeals must be received prior to the due date listed on the appeal form.

APPROVED APPEALS

If the appeal is approved the student will be placed on probation and granted financial aid eligibility for the semester for which they appealed. The student is also placed on an academic plan with a given timeline as to when the student should be meeting SAP.  

At the end of the semester, all “PROBATION” students will be reviewed again to determine if they met the conditions of their appeal. Students who have met the conditions will continue to stay on probation. Students who did not meet the conditions for whom the deadline has passed on their academic plan will go back to not meeting SAP. Students who do not meet the terms of probation must submit a new appeal to be considered for financial aid in subsequent terms.

DENIED APPEALS

If the appeal is not approved the student is sent the denied communication email with an explanation as to why the committee did not approve the appeal.

The student can attend a term without using any federal/state aid. If the student meets the qualitative and quantitative requirements for that semester the student can appeal for the upcoming semester.

If a student’s appeal is not approved, then they can reestablish their financial aid eligibility once they are meeting the qualitative and quantitative requirements outlined in the policy.

Arrupe College Students

Policy Overview

Arrupe students are reviewed for Satisfactory Academic Progress annually. Their SAP review is completed after the end of the summer trailer session for each academic year to determine financial aid eligibility for the upcoming academic year. Arrupe students that are not meeting Satisfactory Academic Progress are communicated with via email about their status which includes their current cumulative Grade Point Average and completion ratio.

Arrupe students are also provided the opportunity to submit an appeal for financial aid eligibility. If the appeal is approved, the student will be placed on probation status. Each probation status is accompanied by terms for each payment period for which the student must meet in order to remain eligible for financial aid. At the end of each semester, the student is reviewed to determine if they met the probationary terms. If the student meets the terms of their probation, they will remain eligible for financial aid for the term. If the student did not meet the terms of their probation, then their Satisfactory Academic Progress status will be updated to Not Meeting Satisfactory Academic Progress and they will not be eligible for federal or state financial aid for the upcoming semester.

Arrupe College students are evaluated on the same qualitative standard and quantitative standard as traditional undergraduate students, a 2.0 cumulative Grade Point Average and 66.667% completion ratio respectively. The maximum timeframe requirement for Arrupe students is 90 credit hours since their degree is an associate degree.

Arrupe College students must submit their appeal by the deadline listed on the appeal form. Appeals received after the due date may be considered at the discretion of the Director.