Financial Aid Resources

Example Undergraduate Student Award Offer

As a Dependent undergraduate student who is a Junior, you are eligible to borrow up to $7,500, with $5,500 in subsidized and $2,000 in unsubsidized loans in student loans for the school year. In this example, you plan to take 12 credit hours in the fall and 12 credit hours in the spring, which makes you a full‑time student (full‑time = completing 24 credit hours over the course of an academic year).

That means:

• Full-time for the year = 24 credits (12 fall + 12 spring)
• Your loan normally comes in two equal payments:
  • Fall: $3,750 ($2,750 subsidized + $1,000 unsubsidized)
  • Spring: $3,750 ($2,750 subsidized + $1,000 unsubsidized)

This means a student in this category cannot receive more than these loan amounts for the entire academic year, including fall, spring, and summer (in that order). In the past, students could take as few as six credits per term and still receive the full loan amount. Now, loan eligibility is adjusted based on a student's scheduled enrollment over the academic year.

What Happens When You Drop a Class

If you drop from 12 credits to 9 credits in the fall before your loan is disbursed, your loan eligibility is reduced because you are now on track to complete 21 hours instead of 24 hours.

Your New Plan for the Year

• Fall: 9 credits
• Spring (expected): 12 credits
• Total: 21 credits

Originally, full‑time for the year was 24 credits, but now you'll only have 21 credits.

Percent of Full-Time You're Completing

(21 ÷ 24) x 100 = 87.5% (rounded to 88%)

This means you are scheduled to complete 88% of the credits needed to be considered full‑time for the combined fall and spring terms.

How This Affects Your Loan

Since you're only completing 88% of the needed credits, you can only receive 88% of your $7,500 loan limit:

• $5,500 x 88% = $4,840 subsidized
• $2,000 x 88% = $1,760 unsubsidized

These figures represent the student's new annual loan limits. Your loans will be adjusted by evenly splitting the reduced amounts between the fall and spring semesters. As a result, the student will receive:

• $2,420 in subsidized loans in fall and spring
• $880 in unsubsidized loans in fall and spring

Example Student Award Offer

As a Dependent undergraduate student who is a Junior, you are eligible to borrow up to $7,500, with $5,500 in subsidized and $2,000 in unsubsidized student loans for the school year. You plan to take 12 credit hours in the fall and 12 credit hours in the spring, which makes you a full‑time student (full‑time = completing 24 credit hours over the course of an academic year).

That means:

• Full-time for the year = 24 credits (12 fall + 12 spring)
• Your loan normally comes in two equal payments:
  • Fall: $3,750 ($2,750 subsidized + $1,000 unsubsidized)
  • Spring: $3,750 ($2,750 subsidized + $1,000 unsubsidized)

What Happens When You Drop a Class

If you drop from 12 credits to 9 credits in the fall after your loan has disbursed, your total loans for the year will need to be reduced. This may create a bill to repay loan money already disbursed in the fall, or there will be a reduction to loans you anticipate receiving in the spring.

Before giving you the spring portion of the loan, the University of Dayton must verify how many credits you are actually going to finish for the combined fall and spring terms.

Your New Plan for the Year

• Fall: 9 credits (originally 12)
• Spring (expected): 12 credits
• Total: 21 credits

Originally, enrollment for the year was 24 credits, but now you’ll only have 21 credits.

Percent of Full-Time You’re Completing

(21 ÷ 24) x 100 = 87.5% (round to 88%)

This means you are scheduled to complete 88% of the credits needed to be considered full‑time for the combined fall and spring terms.

How This Affects Your Loan

Since you’re only completing 87.5% of the needed credits, you can only receive 88% of your $7,500 loan limit:

Your new eligibility for the year is $7,500 x 88% = $6,600

How You Could Still Get the Full Spring Loan

If you take 15 credits in the spring, then your total for the year becomes:

• Fall: 9
• Spring: 15
• Total: 24 credits

With the increased enrollment in the spring semester, you are now showing as enrolled full‑time over the course of the academic year, giving you eligibility again for the $7,500 limit (assuming you meet the rest of the general eligibility criteria to receive that amount).

As a Legacy graduate student borrower who is eligible for both Direct Unsubsidized and Graduate PLUS loans, the Cost of Attendance for full-time enrollment is $24,544, meaning that you can borrow up to $20,500 in unsubsidized Stafford loans, plus $4,554 in the Graduate PLUS loan, if enrolled full time (if you receive other sources of financial aid, including scholarships or grants, your loan eligibility will be calculated for the Award Calculation). In this example, the student plans to take 5 billable credit hours in the Fall, 5 hours in the spring, and 4 in the summer, which classifies the student as less-than-full‑time student (full‑time = completing 18 credit hours over the course of an academic year).

That means:

• Full-time for the year = 18 credits (6 fall + 6 spring + 6 summer)
• Full time loan eligibility = $20,500 unsubsidized and $4,554 Graduate PLUS
• Your billable hours = 14 (5 fall + 4 spring + 4 summer)
• Your loan normally comes in three equal payments

A student in this category cannot receive more than these loan amounts for the entire academic year, including fall, spring and summer (in that order). In the past, students could take as few as 3 credits per term and still receive the full loan amount. Now, loan eligibility is adjusted based on a student's scheduled enrollment (SOR).

Percent of Full-Time Enrollment

(14 ÷ 18) x 100 = 77.7% (rounded to 78%)

This means you are scheduled to complete 78% of the credits needed to be considered full‑time for the combined fall and spring terms.

How This Affects Loan Eligibility

Since you're only completing 78% of the needed credits, you can only receive 78% of your federal loan limit:

• $20,500 x 78% = $15,990 unsubsidized
• $4,554 x 78% = $3,552 Graduate PLUS Loan

These figures represent the student's new annual loan limits.

Undergraduate

A minimum of 12 financial aid-eligible credit hours per term is considered full-time in a term; however, 24 hours over the course of the summer, fall and spring terms are needed to be considered full-time over the course of the academic year.

Graduate/Professional/Doctoral

Full time enrollment for graduate students depends on the program.

Summer Enrollment

For programs in which summer is an optional term, enrollment in summer term can be added to the Fall and Spring hours for total loan eligibility. For programs in which summer is an optional term, the reduction rules apply when enrolled part-time.

As an undergraduate student, summer is an optional term and is not required as part of your program's enrollment. Any hours enrolled in the summer term, will count towards the 24 annual credit hour requirement.

As a graduate student, it depends on your program's requirements. For example, if your program requires enrollment during the summer, then the summer term is used to determine the annual credit hour requirement. So a program where full-time is 6 credit hours requiring enrollment in 3 terms means that the full-time definition is 18 credit hours over the academic year. On the other hand, if your program does not require enrollment during the summer, then any hours in the summer term can be used to establish your full-time registration. A program where full-time is 6 credit hours requiring enrollment in the fall and spring, means that the full-time definition is 12 credit hours over the academic year (including the optional summer term).

Parent PLUS Loans are not subject to the Schedule of Reduction in the same way as Direct Subsidized Loans, Direct Unsubsidized Loans, and Graduate PLUS Loans for students enrolled less than full-time.

Students who are less than full-time often have a Cost of Attendance that is lower than that of full-time students. A reduced Cost of Attendance may impact Parent PLUS Loan eligibility.

Graduate PLUS Loans are considered student loans, which means they are subject to the Schedule of Reduction (SOR). Once a student's full-time eligibility is calculated, it will be adjusted based on the SOR and how many hours the student will be enrolled over the academic period.