A student who wishes to withdraw from the University after completing registration for a semester or summer session must initate the process through the appropriate dean's office. Students should be aware that, depending on the effective date of their withdrawal, they may be considered to have not earned all or a portion of the financial aid funds they received. Because of this, under federal law, our office is often required to return funds to financial aid programs. These funds must be returned by our office within 45 days of the date the student withdrew. The amount of funds we return depends upon the funds received, the effective date of the withdrawal, and the institutional expenses the student incurred. Since these funds have already been received by the student, we will need to be reimbursed by the student for this money before we can approve the withdrawal.

In some cases, if the amount disbursed to the student was less than the amount the student earned, the student may be eligible to receive a post-withdrawal disbursement of the earned aid that was not received. Our office will notify the student if they are eligible for a post-withdrawal disbursement.

Withdrawn courses will be considered unsuccessfully completed and will affect a student's pace toward degree completion. Please review our Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy for more information.

What does all this mean? In a nutshell, students who have received financial aid in a semester from which they later withdraw will often be obligated to immediately repay all or a portion of the funds they received. If you intend to withdraw from UT, please consult with a counselor at our front counter.

Federal financial aid regulations state that a student who makes unsatisfactory grades in all courses for a semester must be considered an unofficial withdrawal unless the institution can document that the student engaged in some academic activity beyond the 60% point of that semester. At UT Austin, unsatisfactory grades are considered to be F's, X's and Q's. Federal student aid recipients who have no grades other than these three reported for an academic semester will be reviewed to determine whether or not they must be considered an unofficial withdrawal. Official UT Austin records and sources will be reviewed to assist in this determination. Students may also be asked to provide documentation if official records are unsatisfactory or ambiguous.

If the student is determined to be an unofficial withdrawal, then the Office of Student Financial Services is required to perform a repayment calculation to ascertain the amount of federal financial aid which was "unearned" by that student for the period no activity can be documented and therefore must be returned to the federal aid programs. The repayment calculation is also mandated by federal regulations and determines the amounts and specific programs to which federal aid must be returned based on the date the student withdrew. This repayment calculation is also applied to students who go through the official withdrawal process and receive all W's, but is generally performed prior to the student completing the withdrawal petition, since our office must sign those before they are approved.

For any student for whom the last date of academic activity cannot be documented as occurring on or after the 60% point of semester, the withdrawal date will be considered the mid-point of the semester unless documented otherwise.

Any student who is considered an unofficial withdrawal and for whom a repayment calculation results in a required return of federal funds will be responsible to repay those funds prior to receiving additional federal financial aid at UT Austin or any other institution. The student will repay the required amount of funds to UT Austin who will return those funds to the federal aid programs from which they came.

Students will have a financial aid bar for the amount owed placed on their records until the amount is fully repaid to UT Austin. This will prevent a student from re-enrolling at UT Austin.