Award Changes & Reductions

Federal and university regulations can require us to reduce or cancel financial aid awards based on violations of award criteria or other changes in your aid eligibility. To reduce changes from application errors, please carefully complete all your financial aid application data. To avoid unexpected changes, please carefully read the information below.

Report Your Additional Aid/Resources

Many late aid changes are caused by failure to report additional aid to TU.  If you receive any additional grants, scholarships or other educational benefits that are not already listed on your TU Financial Aid Notification, please immediately notify TU with the form below.  If you do not notify us in advance, the Student & University Billing Office will notify us when they disburse your additional aid, and you will receive late notification of your aid changes.  

• Go to Aid Forms to submit our Notice of Additional Resources form.

Aid Change Causes

Most changes are caused by the following situations:

• If we discover errors in your FAFSA data during the verification process, those corrections can change your Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and your Financial Need.  To avoid late surprises, promptly and accurately submit all requested verification documents.
• Changing your enrollment level from full-time to part-time or to fewer part-time credits can violate the Minimum Unit requirements for many awards and can also reduce your Cost of Attendance Budget.  If you will enroll part-time, promptly notify us by visiting aid forms and submitting our Course Load Change Form.
• Switching to In-state tuition rates can reduce your Cost of Attendance Budget, financial need, and aid eligibility.
• Changes in housing status (on-campus, off-campus, or living with parents) can also reduce your Cost of Attendance Budget and financial need, and can directly change your eligibility for MHEC's Guaranteed Access Grants.  Promptly notify us of any housing status changes by visiting aid forms and submitting our Housing Verification Form.
• If you receive additional aid/benefits (grants, scholarships, tuition waivers, TU Resident Assistant room and board benefits, etc.), they can reduce your financial need and aid eligibility.  Promptly notify us about additional aid by visiting aid forms and submitting our Notice of Additional Resources form.
• If we find that you don't meet the specific eligibility requirements for any of your financial aid awards, we must cancel those awards.
• Only for these state aid programs from the Maryland Higher Aid Commission (MHEC), if you study abroad you must choose a study abroad program that requires you to pay your study abroad tuition directly to a college/university that is located within the state of Maryland.  If the program requires you to pay your tuition to an out-of-state institution, then you will not be able to receive your MHEC aid for that program.
• Pell Grant Lifetime Limits — your lifetime Pell Grant disbursements cannot exceed the equivalent of 12 terms (six years) of full-time awards. For more information, see Pell Grant Limits.
• If you are graduating at the end of a fall term, we must cancel your spring aid, and if you enroll part-time for that final fall term, we must pro-rate your federal fall loan amounts.  For more information, see Minimum Credits.

• Aid could also be reduced based in reductions in federal or state funding levels.

• Athletically related aid may be cancelled or nonrenewed if students fail to adhere to team rules or the student-athlete handbook, become ineligible for practice or competition, quit the team, voluntarily withdraw from team activities, or notify the institution of their intent to transfer or enter the Transfer Portal.

Total Aid and Financial Need Limits

For most federal, state, and institutional aid programs, your total aid can't exceed your Cost of Attendance Budget.  Certain combinations of need-based aid and other gift aid (grants, scholarships, tuition waivers) also can't exceeding your financial need.

These over-award rules divide aid into groups and usually set the following limits for those groups.

• Financial Need Limits — If total aid from Groups A and B exceeds your Financial Need, we must reduce your Group A awards.
• Budget Limit 1 — If total aid from Groups A, B, and C exceeds your Cost of Attendance Budget, we must reduce Group C loans.
• Budget Limit 2 — If total aid from Groups A and B exceeds your Cost of Attendance Budget, then we must usually reduce your federal, state, or institutional aid. (We will only reduce private aid if required to do so by the private donor.)
• SEOG and TU "Institutional Grant" limits — In addition to the need and budget limits above, students may not receive the need-based SEOG grant or a TU "Institutional Grant" in combination with a Guaranteed Access (GA) Grant from the Maryland Higher Education Commission (MHEC) unless they are living off-campus not with their parents.  When students are living "On-Campus" or "With Parents" and receive MHEC's GA Grant, their SEOG grant and the TU "Institutional Grant" will be canceled.  (The MHEC GA Grant amounts are always much larger than the SEOG and TU Institutional Grant.)

Group A

Need-based aid programs that require remaining unmet financial need:

• Federal SEOG Grants
• TU Institutional Grants
• TU Top 10% Grants
• Federal Work-Study Program
• Federal Direct Subsidized Student Loans

Group B

All the aid programs below help to meet your financial need and your total educational costs:

• need-based Federal Pell Grants, need-based state aid, and other need-based aid programs not listed above

• all scholarships and tuition waivers, and many other educational benefits even if they don't require financial need including TU Resident Assistant room and meal plan benefits.

Group C

Non-need-based loans do not require financial need and don't count toward meeting your financial need, but they are included in your total aid, which can't exceed your Cost of Attendance budget:

• Federal Direct Unsubsidized Student Loans
• Federal Parent PLUS Loans or Grad-PLUS Loans
• Private/Alternative Student Loans