The policy below describes aid refund requirements for the federal aid programs such as, Federal Pell Grants, Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants, TEACH Grants, Direct Loans, Direct PLUS Loans, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOGs), and Federal Perkins Loans as well as any state, institutional, or private scholarship programs (as required by the donor).

If you are a financial aid recipient and withdraw from all of your classes, any refund of university charges will be returned to the financial aid programs. (The general tuition refund policy for the University is available at Student Fiscal Services.)

For Federal financial aid programs, if you withdraw from all classes within the first 60% of the quarter, you may owe immediate repayment of a portion of the aid you received. The proportion of aid that must be returned by you and the university is based on the number of days remaining divided by the number of days in the quarter. The UW is required to refund the portion of your institutional costs equal to the portion of the quarter remaining to the aid programs. You must pay the remainder of the funds that must be returned as well as any final tuition or forfeiture fee payments that had to be returned to the aid programs. You do not have to repay a grant overpayment if the original amount of the overpayment is $50 or less.  No aid funds must be repaid if you attend more than 60% of the quarter before withdrawing.

If you did not receive all of the funds that you earned, you may be due a post-withdrawal disbursement. If your post-withdrawal disbursement includes loan funds, we will ask your permission before we disburse any additional funds. You may choose to decline some or all of the loan funds so you don’t incur additional debt. We will use all or a portion of your post-withdrawal disbursement of grant funds for tuition, fees, and UW room and board charges. We will use the post-withdrawal grant disbursement for all other school charges, unless you indicate that you do not want us to do so. However, it may be in your best interest to allow the UW to use the funds to reduce your debt at the school.

The refund of university charges and any additional refunds or payments will be credited to the federal aid programs in the following order, up to the amount you received for that quarter:

  • Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford/Ford Loan
  • Federal Direct Subsidized Stafford/Ford Loan
  • Federal Perkins Loan
  • Federal Direct Parent Loan for Undergraduate Students
  • Federal Pell Grant
  • Federal Supplemental Education Opportunity Grant
  • Other Title IV aid programs
  • Health Profession and Nursing Loans.

For Washington State grant aid, institutional aid, and private scholarships, no repayment of aid will be assessed if you withdraw after the quarter begins and you attended at least one day in each registered course, up to 12 credits.

For all aid programs, if you remain enrolled but fail to pass any classes, we are required to consider you to have withdrawn unless we receive acceptable documentation of your attendance. If you do not provide the required documentation, you will be required to repay all the aid you received, and since you failed to take the appropriate steps to withdraw officially, you will still owe the university for your tuition and other costs incurred.

Please see a Financial Aid Counselor in Schmitz 105 (no appointment required), for further information about withdrawing from classes and the effect on your financial aid.