NASFAA Mention: ED Dept Loosens Requirements for Academic Term Lengths
"The U.S. Department of Education this week announced changes that will make it easier for programs with terms longer or shorter than a typical semester or quarter to disburse federal aid to students," Education Dive reports.
"Previously, the department considered semesters and trimesters that are 15 to 17 weeks long and quarters that are 10 to 12 weeks to be standard terms, which have simpler rules for disbursing Title IV funds than those with lengths outside those parameters.
With the changes, standard terms now include semesters and trimesters of 14 to 21 weeks and quarters of 9 to 13 weeks. The revisions also allow a program's term length to vary 'substantially' from year to year, the department said.
'Institutions would vastly prefer to be classified as having standard terms because it's easier for them to process their aid,' Karen McCarthy, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said in an interview with Education Dive. "
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Publication Date: 11/8/2019