Guest columnist
opinion@dailylobo.com
The fall semester is quickly approaching, and transfer students are preparing for the rigors of a four-year university.
Unbeknownst to them, however, UNM has already stacked the deck against them. The UNM Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy is not in compliance with federal regulations, and the Financial Aid Department ignores the policy that is currently in place.
According The UNM’s Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy, the University measures “satisfactory academic progress” (SAP) by 3 separate aspects:
The first is the qualitative standard based on a student’s overall GPA. The GPA standard has a sliding scale based on total attempted credit hours.
Second is the quantitative standard, in which students must successfully complete at least 67% of the credit hours they attempt. The last measure is the maximum time frame. Students must complete their programs of study within 150% of the published length of the programs, as measured by credit hours attempted.
UNM reviews academic progress at the end of each semester. If a student fails to meet one of these standards, they are deemed ineligible for financial aid. The student is given an opportunity to appeal the decision if they meet certain qualifications. If the student is approved, they will be placed on an academic plan. The student must then comply with the plan or else lose financial aid.
Federal regulation states that a University policy must specify how the quantitative standard is calculated. The federal requirement is to “calculate the pace at which a student is progressing by dividing the total number of hours the student has successfully completed by the total number he has attempted.” The policy must also “explain how GPA and pace of completion are affected by course incompletes, withdrawals, repetitions, and by transfer credits from other schools. At a minimum, transfer credits that count toward the student’s current program must count as both attempted and completed hours.”
UNM’s quantitative standard defines a successfully completed class as a class in which an A, B, C, D or CR is earned. The standard also clarifies that “all attempted hours are counted whether or not financial aid was received.”
Per federal policy, the standard addresses withdrawals, repetitions, and incompletes. However, the standard does not address how transfer credits are figured into the completion rate.
Since UNM’s policy does not include a section or statement that explains how transfer credits affect a student’s completion rate, the policy is not in compliance with federal regulation. UNM is required to have this statement in the policy and at a minimum “transfer credits that count toward the student’s current program must count as both attempted and completed hours.”
Although its own policy and federal regulation require it to, the University does not include transfer credits into the computation of completion rates. The University only includes classes attempted at UNM. Financial Aid representatives acknowledged that the policy of the University is to only include UNM classes.
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Therefore, all transfer students attending UNM are having their completion rates calculated incorrectly.
Transfer students are not having their records correctly reviewed by the Financial Aid Office. When students transfer from CNM, they must have all of their attempted and completed CNM courses counted at UNM. When UNM ignores their own policy and federal policy, they put transfer students at an unfair disadvantage.
Transferring from a community college to a four-year university can be overwhelming for some students. They may have had multi-year breaks between school attendances and need to get back into the routine. They may fail a class or two in their first semesters at UNM even if they hadn’t failed any before.
UNM does not take the circumstances into consideration, ignores its own policy, and only counts those recent classes in the completion rate. In such a situation a student would be ineligible for financial aid and must face the stress of filing a petition.
Many transfer students are first-generation university students or older nontraditional students. Most of these students do not know whom to ask for financial aid advice and are barely able to afford their lives while attending school. When they are placed on academic plans, the stress levels may cause them to struggle through the following semester. They may fail only one class then, but would still not meet the academic plan standards. They would then be ineligible for future financial aid.
Such a student would go to the Financial Aid Office to beg for another chance, but the Financial Aid Office would answer that they “do not make the rules” and “it is your own fault.” The Financial Aid Office would tell the student that they will not receive financial aid until they meet certain standards and file a new petition. The student could no longer afford to attend the University and would drop out of school.
Unfortunately, said student did not read and understand the UNM Academic Progress Policy. If they had, they would have realized that the 60 credit hours completed at CNM should have been counted in the completion rate. The student should never have been deemed ineligible for financial aid in the first place. They should never have had to endure the stress of the petition process and the academic plan. The student should not have had to worry about how to get to school, pay tuition and pay their bills.
Tens of thousands of transfer students have been affected by UNM’s inaccurate calculation of completion rates. UNM policy is not in compliance with federal regulations and is discriminatory toward transfer students. The Financial Aid Office does not follow the guidance of its own policy and destroys the academic careers of many unknowing students.
The new Compliance Committee may want to take time to look into the policy and find a way to reimburse the students who have been unlawfully denied financial aid.
