Federal financial aid regulations require schools to monitor students’ academic progress (SAP) before disbursing financial aid funds to them. In order to maintain eligibility for financial aid funds, students must comply with UT Austin’s standards for SAP. Basically, we look to see that students are moving positively toward achieving a degree in their designated field of study. The Office of Student Financial Services uses three primary measures for determining whether or not a student is making SAP.

• Minimum GPA Required. At the end of each semester, we monitor the cumulative GPA of our students. Undergraduate students must have a 2.0, and graduates must have a 3.0 in order to be eligible for aid in future semesters.
• Required Number of Hours (a.k.a. Strikes). The majority of undergraduate students are awarded financial aid based on their enrolling for 12 hours during the fall and spring and 9 hours during the summer. Most graduate students are awarded based on a fall and spring enrollment of 9 hours and a summer enrollment of 6. If the student enrolls in less than full-time hours without the prior approval of our office, or withdraws from the university, the student is assessed a 'strike' on their financial aid file for that semester at UT Austin. This is true whether or not the student is receiving aid for that particular semester. After three strikes, a student is not eligible for further funds through our office.
  NOTE: If you need to enroll in less than full time hours, you MUST receive prior approval from the financial aid office. This may require that your financial aid eligibility be adjusted to reflect actual hours enrolled.
• Maximum Hours Allowed. In order to receive financial aid, a student must make clear progress towards a degree by completing their degree requirements within a certain number of credit hours. Undergraduates are allowed 150 hours to complete their degrees (with the exception of architecture and pharmacy students, who are allowed 175 hours). Up to 30 credit hours of transfer work are waived for undergraduate students in assessing total credit hours towards their degree program. Graduate students are allowed 40 credit hours for a Master’s degree, 140 credit hours for a doctoral degree with a Master’s and 160 credit hours without a Master’s degree.

The Office of Student Financial Services runs programs after each semester to check on students who may not be making satisfactory academic progress. We send out warning e-mails to students who are in danger of violating one or more of these policies. We also place bars on the financial aid files of students who have violated the SAP policies. We will notify all affected students by e-mail.

Students who have a bar for a SAP issue will need to submit an appeal to our office before they can receive aid in future semesters. Appeals must be filled out by the student and by their academic advisor, and must then be routed to a counselor or appeals committee in our office.

When the financial aid counselor reviews your appeal they will review your entire history as a student at the university, including those semesters that you did not have aid.. The counselor will review many aspects of your file. Some examples of relevant factors:

• What are the mitigating circumstances that caused your failure to meet SAP? Examples of mitigating circumstances are:
  • - Death of a family member
  • - Extreme illness or injury of a family member
  • - Personal illness or injury
  • - Other unusual hardship causing your lack of success as assessed by your financial aid counselor
• Does the student have a history of repeating courses multiple times or repeating multiple courses?
• Does the student have a history of not completing courses during the course of a semester (Incompletes)?

The student will be notified once the appeal has been approved or denied, or if further information/documentation is needed. Students should give our office approximately two to three weeks to respond to SAP appeals. Also note that in some cases, you may be asked to submit additional information or documentation in support of your individual appeal.