Setting Up Packaging Basics

This chapter provides an overview of setting up packaging and discusses how to:

• Define packaging variables.

• Define disbursement plans and split codes.

• Set up aggregate aid.

• Set up award messages.

• Set up loan fees.

• Define financial aid item types.

• Budget fiscal limits.

• Prepare for early financial aid offers.

• Set up restricted aid.

• Set up award adjustment reasons.

Understanding Packaging Basics

The items covered in this chapter are the basic items required for all three modes of packaging (manual, auto, and mass). If your institution is only going to use manual awarding, you only need to perform setup tasks in this chapter. If you are going to use Auto Packaging or Mass Packaging, you must perform the setup tasks outlined in the Setting Up Auto Packaging and Mass Packaging chapter.

This section lists prerequisites and common elements and discusses:

• Award adjustment reasons.

• Early financial aid offers.

• Awarding versus packaging.

• Financial aid item types.

See Also

Setting Up Auto Packaging and Mass Packaging

Prerequisites

Before you begin to set up your institution's financial aid item types and your awarding and packaging rules, you must:

• Set up your institution's installation defaults and other basic elements of the financial aid application processing cycle (such as aid year and valid careers for aid year).

• Set up your item types for financial aid in PeopleSoft Enterprise Student Financials—you cannot set up your financial aid item types until you have set up item types.

• Establish your financial aid terms.

• Review the concepts of tablesets and set IDs.

If you plan to use admissions rating components as criteria for awarding certain awards, you must:

• Have a list of the rating components used by the admissions office at your institution.

• Know what the various rating components are used for and what names have been used for them in PeopleSoft Enterprise Recruiting and Admissions.

  See Setting Up for Evaluating Applicants.

Before using the Equation Processor you should know what fields are valid for use in equations and what their names are. A list of valid fields can be found in the “Using the Equation Processor” section. Packaging equations are used for queries and selections from the database and to calculate values.

See Using Equations.

Common Element Used in This Chapter

Award Adjustment Reasons

Financial aid counselors use award adjustment reasons to document why they made a change to the student's award. Award adjustment reasons are available for you to edit, add to, or delete. Award adjustment reasons are required by the Professional Judgement page, and they can also enhance your ability to track patterns in awarding.

Early Financial Aid Offers

If you plan to offer early financial aid awards, and you want to use broad categories of aid instead of specific awards, you must set up these broad categories from which a student could be awarded early financial aid. For instance, you can create categories for scholarships, loans, grants, and work-study. When you actually create an early financial aid offer, you use these categories instead of financial aid item types.

Awarding versus Packaging

A note about terminology: Awarding and packaging are terms that are often used interchangeably. In this book, awarding is used to mean the activity of choosing one financial aid award at a time for a student. Packaging is used to refer to a process where many awards are given to a student at one time to make a financial aid award package.

Financial Aid Item Types

Financial aid item types are selected item types that your institution has assigned to the funds awarded as financial aid. The item type is used to map the financial aid award transaction to the appropriate general ledger account during the general ledger process. The way item types are classified governs whether they are considered as financial aid item types.

There are several major steps involved when you set up your item types for financial aid.

1. Add keywords on the Keywords page to simplify the search for a financial aid item type in a search dialog box.

   Keywords that you might use for your item types include grants, loans, work (for work-study), scholarship, and merit.

   Note. Financial aid and bursar offices should work together to set up your keywords so that a keyword standard can be defined for your institution.

2. Set up the item types used by financial aid in the Item Types component.

3. Set up financial aid item types.

4. Set up fiscal item types. Defines amount of spending money for a particular fund.

   Note. Use the same Set ID for all of your financial aid item types.

See Also

Completing Student Financials General Setup

Defining Packaging Variables

To set up packaging variables, use the Package Rating Components component (PKG_RTNGCMP_GROUP).

This section provides an overview of packaging variables and describes how to:

• Define package rating components.

• Enter institution-specific variables.

• Populate rating components in batch.

• Populate rating components manually.

Understanding Packaging Variables

Many fields are already available in Financial Aid, but the Packaging Variables component enables you to create additional institutionally defined variable fields for use in the packaging process. You can define character variables, numeric variables, and yes/no flags. Package rating components are also included as packaging variables.

Use the package rating components you define here to define specific student populations for packaging. For example, you may want to select all students with total SAT I scores over 1000 for a particular award. This could be done by assigning the SAT I criteria used by Recruiting and Admissions to one of the package rating components. Then, when defining your population of students for packaging, you would include the package rating component that referred to SAT I score in your selection formula. Package rating components are defined for each career. You must have a different group of package rating components for each career that utilizes package rating components in packaging plans. Enter the admissions rating components and GPA types in any order, but keep track of which items you enter for each package rating component for future reference.

The Rating Component 1 and 2 pages in the Packaging Variables component enable you to enter or to view package rating component information. Package rating components correspond to admissions rating components. You can enter package rating component information manually or using a background process.

To enter package rating component information manually:

1. Select the admissions rating components to use as package rating components in the Package Rating Components component.

2. Enter the student's values on the Rating Components 1 page or Rating Components 2 page.

To enter package rating component information in batch:

1. Select the admissions rating components to use as package rating components in the Package Rating Components component.

2. Run the Assign Packaging Rtng Component (assign packaging rating component) process (FAPKGCMP) on the Assign Packaging Rating Components page.

3. Review values returned by the process on the Rating Components 1 page or Rating Components 2 page.

You can change the field names on these pages by using the Application Designer. For example, if you use a character variable to represent a student's county of residence, you can change Var Char 1 to County. If you do not change the field names, make a note of what each variable value represents for future reference.

Pages Used to Define Packaging Variables

Defining Package Rating Components

Access the Package Rating Components 1 page.

Component #1-20	Enter the admissions rating component or GPA type you want to use as a package rating component. You can enter values in any fields in any order. Note. To select a GPA type, you must first select the SR check box next to that field.
SR (student records)	Determines what values you can select in the Component field. Select to have only GPA types available for selection.

Entering Institution-Specific Variables

Access the User Variables page.

Var Char 1-10 (character variable)	Enter any alpha characters such as words, phrases, or symbols. For example, a character variable could be used to define a particular student interest, such as an interest in psychology, that helps determine eligibility for a scholarship, such as a psychology merit scholarship.
Var Num 1-10 (numeric variable)	Enter numeric variables to define anything that has a numeric value such as percentages, integers, or dollar amounts. Numeric variables could be used to define formulated numeric values such as test scores plus GPA or a raw index of a student's financial need. If you do not enter a value in numeric variable field, the zeros remain in the field. The format for this field is numeric.
User Variable Y/N Flag #1-10	Yes/No Flags can be defined for any variable field with a ‘Y’ or ‘N’ value. An example of where you might use a Yes/No Flag is the Ability To Benefit test. Select the check box to indicate Yes. Clear the check box to indicate No. The value you enter should be true for the student whose name appears in the top portion of the page.

Populating Rating Components in Batch

Access the Assign Packaging Rating Components page.

Process Components From

Select the criteria you want the system to use when selecting students for processing.

Other Page Elements

Admissions Criteria

Enter the Recruiting and Admissions criteria the system should use to select students for processing.

Records Criteria

Enter the Student Records criteria the system should use to select students for processing.

Populating Rating Components Manually

Access the Rating Component 1 page.

The package rating components are broken up into two groups with ten components per page. Package rating components are mapped to Recruiting and Admissions or Student Records criteria on the Package Rating Components page. If you are populating the package rating components in batch, run the Assign Packaging Rtng Component (assign packaging rating component) process (FAPKGCMP) periodically, so that when you use the package rating components the values are current.

Defining Disbursement Plans and Split Codes

To set up disbursement plans and split codes, use the Disbursement Plan Table component (DISBURSE_PLAN_TBL), the Disbursement ID Table component (DISBURSE_ID_TBL), the Disbursement Split Code component (DISB_SPLIT_CD), and the Disbursement Split Cd Formula component (DISB_ID_SPLIT).

Financial aid funds are awarded to students based on an annual or aid year amount, but you would rarely deliver these funds to students in one lump sum, unless the student is in attendance for only one term. Disbursement plans specify when and how much of a particular award to disburse, by term, to the student's account in Student Financials. For example, if your institution has two terms, you may disburse awards once per term or you may disburse multiple times within a term. Disbursement plans are defined by career, so if you have a law school on semesters and your undergraduates are on quarters, you can define different disbursement plans for each career.

This section discusses how to:

• Create disbursement plans.

• Set up disbursement IDs.

• Set up disbursement split codes.

• Define split code formulas.

Before you begin, you must gather all the possible target disbursement dates for the different student populations your institution supports. For example, students enrolled in the law school begin classes ten days prior to all other academic programs. You must also have a good understanding of any special disbursement patterns a fund may have. For example, you may have an institutional fund that is disbursed in one lump sum for the year or perhaps disbursed on a monthly basis.

Pages Used to Define Disbursement Plans and Split Codes

Creating Disbursement Plans

Access the Disbursement Plan page.

Disbursement plans must account for all possible patterns you use to disburse money to a student. For example, if your institution supports quarter-based terms, you might have a plan for all three quarters, fall and spring quarter, fall and winter quarter, winter and spring quarter, and then a plan for each quarter alone. That way, no matter what the student's attendance pattern is, you have a disbursement plan defined to match that pattern. Define at least one disbursement plan for each career. For clarity, you may want to make your disbursement plan code or value consistent across careers. Your disbursement plan defines the pattern for disbursement of financial aid funds. For example, at a semester-based institution, disbursements can occur in the fall semester only, the spring semester only, or both semesters. Each of these patterns would be defined as a separate disbursement plan.

Note. For all non-Direct Lending programs, you must provide disbursement plan and split code schemes that do not include any zero percentages in a disbursement ID. When a loan is originated, the scheduled disbursement amounts and associated disbursement ID is carried forward to the Peoplesoft financial aid loan origination routine. All non-DL loans with a zero amount associated to a disbursement ID will be rejected during the initial origination process. For example, a disbursement plan of three quarters (fall, winter and spring) could not be used to award a Winter and Spring FFELP subsidized Stafford loan.

Setting Up Disbursement IDs

Access the Disbursement ID page.

Disbursement IDs provide all the possible target disbursement dates with a specific disbursement plan. Disbursement split codes and formulas create the disbursement patterns and distribution percentages to each applicable Disbursement ID. When you run the disbursement and authorization processes to disburse aid to a student's account, the system reviews a comprehensive set of rules to ensure the eligibility of aid to a student's account. For example, a federal SEOG award maybe targeted to disburse on the first day of the term, however, aid will not be disbursed until a student completes the verification process.

Setting Up Disbursement Split Codes

Access the Disbursement Split Code page.

Disbursement split codes put a label to various disbursement schemes that instruct the system how to divide an award disbursement amount among terms. For example, if your institution has three terms, you would want one split code to split disbursements equally among the three terms. You usually have more than one split code per disbursement plan depending on the business practices of your institution and the needs of your financial aid office. You will define the distribution percentages to these split codes further in the Disbursement Split Code Formula setup. You can configure all disbursements on a individual award basis, however, it is better to for you to define most of the schemes in advance.

Defining Split Code Formulas

Access the Disbursement Split Formula page.

Split code formulas define what percentage of the award should be disbursed for each disbursement ID for each Disbursement Plan and Split Code combination. Define the split code formula for each split code you have defined for your institution.

Comparison of Valid Even Split Option Values

Here's a comparison of the two valid field values using a 3,000.00 USD award amount (all values in USD).

Setting Up Aggregate Aid

To set up aggregate aid, use the Aggregate Level Translation component (AGGR_LVL_XREF), the Aggregate Programs component (AGGR_PROG_TABLE), the Aggregate Aid Limits component (AGGR_AID_TBL), and the Aggregate Area Translation component (SFA_AGGR_AREA_XREF).

To ensure that a student does not exceed annual and lifetime limits for certain award programs, it is critical that the system maintain and assess a complete aid history when determining aid eligibility. The system provides several options and methods to maintain aggregate or history aid to ensure that eligibility requirements and award limits are followed.

You can define aggregate area rules for each academic level, for undergraduate and graduate grade level designation, or as lifetime funding. You will have several rule options available at the aggregate area level. Multiple Pass Processing (MPP) is an optional feature defined at the aggregate area level that automates mid-year grade level limit increases during the awarding and packaging process. In addition, cumulative level limits provides the means to limit aid by aggregate level across aid years.

The NSLDS database maintains aid history for the federal award programs: Stafford subsidized, Stafford unsubsidized, Perkins, Pell, and SEOG. Financial Aid supports the means for your institution to request NSLDS data and incorporate key elements into the awarding and packaging routines. NSLDS data is sent to schools through several methods. It is included on the student's ISIR, generated based on an FAH request, or based on a TSM Alert request. To utilize NSLDS data in the awarding and packaging processes, NSLDS must be loaded, pushed to aggregate aid tables, and then, based on your institution's setup preference, the packaging routine is directed to use NSLDS as an aggregate source. This section discusses how to:

• Review aggregate levels.

• Establish aggregate programs.

• Create aggregate aid limits.

• Create Aggregate Area Translations.

Pages Used to Set Up Aggregate Aid

Reviewing Aggregate Levels

Access the Aggregate Level Cross-Reference page.

The system populates this table.

Establishing Aggregate Programs

Access the Aggregate Program page.

Aid program limits link aggregate areas together to enable you to combine limits between subsidized and unsubsidized loan aggregate area limits.

The following four loan programs are the only values available for selection.

Although the loan programs are delivered with Financial Aid and are hard-coded, you must activate the loan program link by adding the description to each loan program and linking it to the appropriate aggregate aid limits.

Creating Aggregate Aid Limits

Access the Aggregate Aid Limit page.

Warning! Since financial aid item type information is shared across the PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions database, you must use the same aggregate area for all financial aid item types for the same type of aid. For example, if you have separate subsidized Stafford financial aid item types for graduates and undergraduates, both subsidized Stafford financial aid item types must point to the same subsidized Stafford aggregate area. You have the option to associate an aggregate area to one or many financial aid item types. If you have multiple institutions, coordinate aggregate areas and aid types to ensure aid limits are calculated correctly for students who may be receiving aid from multiple institutions.

You must define a single aggregate area for each distinct type of federal aid—Stafford subsidized loan, Stafford unsubsidized loan, Perkins Loan, SEOG, and Pell Grant.

Using Aggregate Areas with Multiple Pass Processing

An optional feature that you set on the Aggregate Aid Limit page is the Multi-Pass processing option. Federally funded financial aid programs require strict eligibility requirements and borrowing limits. Most level limits increase as a student progresses in her studies. A student who has already borrowed up to the annual level limit within an academic year can receive additional funds if the annual level limit increases because a student advances or progresses to a new grade level with a higher-level limit. Financial Aid provides two procedural options to accommodate and award for an additional increase due to grade level changes. Option one is to use multiple and/or unique item types with different disbursement plans and split codes to support the additional eligibility. The other option is to select the Multi-Pass Processing check box.

Note. MPP is currently unavailable for loan program that are originated within Financial Aid (for example, Direct, FFELP, Health and Perkins - Loan Programs). Additional information and examples are available on how to handle the awarding loan programs across multiple NSLDS loan years.

See Managing Special Cases in Packaging.

Multi-Pass processing directs the awarding and packaging process to evaluate and produce multiple internal award entries, each of which, reflect a separate set of scheduled disbursement amounts for every change in a student's NSLDS grade level eligibility. That is to say, this process first produces an award with scheduled disbursements according to the lowest level limit, and then generates residual disbursement amounts as the aggregate level limits are increased based on a change in the student's NSLDS level. After these individual awards have been created, the packaging process internally consolidates all the scheduled disbursements into a single composite award reflecting the sum total of the individual aggregate level increases for the aid year.

Note. Since split percentages here are successively re-applied during this process, the final consolidated scheduled disbursement award amounts will not necessarily be an accurate reflection of the actual split percentages that would normally be expected.

The following two examples illustrate how the packaging routine proceeds if an item type is associated to an aggregate area with Multi-Pass processing turned on and then with Multi-Pass processing turned off. The first example below represents an extreme student scenario to help clearly demonstrate the Multi-Pass processing logic. The example shows an increased aggregate limit for each aggregate level; this demonstrates how the packaging process iterates through each step as the award schedule disbursement are being built up, before the disbursements are consolidated into a single award.

Example 1. Multi-Pass Processing check box selected.

Item Type = 900000000810, Mackor Scholarship Grant

Disbursement Split Code Formula = Even among first disbursement for Term

Aggregate Area FIRE - Level Limits setup

U1 = 2,000

U2 = 4,000

U3 = 5,000

First internal pass based on U1 eligibility.

Second internal pass to accommodate increased eligibility from U1 to U2.

Third internal pass to accommodate increased eligibility from U2 to U3.

Final posted award: Item Type = 900000000810 5,000 USD (note overall award did not exceed the highest level limit. In this example 5,000 USD).

The Aggregate Summary page displays the aggregate level detail when MPP is selected.

Example 2. Multi-Pass Processing check box not selected.

Item Type = 900000000810, Mackor Scholarship Grant

Disbursement Split Code Formula = Even among first disbursement for Term

Aggregate Area FIRE - Level Limits

U1 = 2,000

U2 = 4,000

U3 = 5,000

Only one pass evaluated – Final posted award: Item Type = 900000000810 2,000 USD.

The following Aggregate Summary page displays aggregate level detail when the MPP is not selected. In this example, the aggregate level U1 is used to determine the aggregate limit balance to draw eligibility from. After the award has been determined, the system spreads the disbursements for that level among all disbursement terms.

Note. When the Multi-Pass processing option is turned off at the aggregate aid level, you must award additional unique item types associated to the same aggregate area to award the increase in grade level eligibility.

Example 3

Item Type = 900000000815, Mackor Scholarship Grant II

Disbursement Split Code Formula = Even among first disbursement for Term

Aggregate Area - Level Limits

U1 = 2,000

U2 = 4,000

U3 = 5,000

Only one pass evaluated - Final posted award: Item Type = 900000000810 2,000 USD.

Only one pass evaluated - Final posted award: Item Type = 900000000815 2,000 USD.

Only one pass evaluated - Final posted award: Item Type = 900000000816 1,000 USD.

The following Aggregate Summary page displays the result of using three separate financial aid item types used to accommodate and award the increase in eligibility due to NSLDS grade level changes. All of the financial aid item types must be associated to the FIRE aggregate area.

Creating Aggregate Aid Translations

Access the Aggregate Area-NSLDS Cross-reference page.

If your school decides to incorporate NSLDS data in the awarding and packaging processes, this setup must be completed prior to any load and push of NSLDS from either the ISIR, TSM or FAH data files.

Setting Up Award Messages

To set up award messages, use the Award Messages component (AWARD_MESSAGES).

Award messages can be linked to financial aid item types and then included on Financial Aid Notification (FAN) letters to students. The delivered SetID MODEL provides many of the basic award messages needed. However, you can add new messages or modify existing messages.

This section discusses how to define award messages.

See Also

Defining Disbursement and Anticipated Aid

Pages Used to Set Up Award Messages

Defining Award Messages

Access the Award Messages page.

For your SetID and current processing aid year, create a financial aid message code of OTHR with a description that specifies that the item type be printed as part of Other Resources and to check the Estimate of Resources section of the notification.

Setting Up Loan Fees

To set up loan fees, use the Loan Fee Setup component (LOAN_FEE_TABLE).

Set up loan fees in the Loan Fee Table to ensure that the correct loan fees are deducted from each loan financial aid item type at the time of awarding. Loan fees are origination and insurance fees that are deducted from the gross amount of the loan. When defining a loan financial aid item type, attach the appropriate loan fees on the FA Item Type 6 page. Remember to create loan fee information for all loan types at your institution.

This section discusses how to create loan fees.

Page Used to Add Loan Fees

Creating Loan Fees

Access the Loan Fee Table page.

Loan Fee Type	Select the value that indicates the purpose of the loan fee. Be sure to select R—Rebate if the loan fee is an interest rebate, used for the Direct Loan interest rebate.
Loan Fee Option	Select the value that indicates how the amount of the loan fee is determined. Flat: The loan fee is a flat amount. If you select this value, you must select a Loan Fee Rule and enter the Loan Fee Amount. Percentage: The amount of the loan fee is a percentage of the student’s award amount. If you select this value, you must indicate the percentage in the Loan Fee Percent field.
Loan Fee Rule	This field is available only if you select Flat in the Loan Fee Option field. The loan fee rule determines how the Packaging routine distributes the loan fee amount among disbursements. All in 1st Disbursement: The entire loan fee amount is subtracted from the first disbursement. Weighted Across Disbursements: The loan fee amount is split among the disbursements according to the disbursement split code percentages. Loan fee options and loan fee rules are delivered with the system as translate values that cannot be modified in any way. The Packaging routine bases certain calculations on these values and changing them would have unforeseen consequences.
Loan Fee Percent	This field is available only if you select Percentage in the Loan Fee Option field. The loan fee amount is this percentage of the total award amount.
Loan Fee Amount	This field is available only if you select Flat in the Loan Fee Option field. Enter the total loan fee amount.

Note. This is no longer applicable in the 9.0 system.

Processing Direct Loan Interest Rebate

The up-front Direct Loan interest rebate amount of 1.5 percent of the gross disbursement is calculated at the disbursement level for each Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, and Direct PLUS loan. The rebate amount is added after the 3 percent loan fee is subtracted from the gross disbursement amount. For example, a student receives a Direct Loan of 1,000.00 USD for the Fall 2004 term. The net disbursed amount is 985.00 USD because the 3 percent loan fee of 30.00 USD is deducted from the gross amount of the loan, and the 1.5 percent rebate of 15.00 USD is added back into the loan.

The Packaging routine calculates loan fee amounts for each loan award in a student’s financial aid package. These loan fee amounts are set up on the Loan Fee Table page and can be a flat fee or a percentage of the award amount. When setting up the loan fee for the interest rebate feature, you must establish the interest rebate with a Loan Fee Type of R—Rebate. Each loan financial aid item type can have various loan fees associated with it.

The Packaging routine evaluates the loan fee type. The interest rebate loan fee type is processed differently than other loan fee types. The system processes interest rebate loan fee types using the Department of Education’s recommended formula. An interest rebate loan fee is processed after all other loan fees have been applied to the loan award.

The interest rebate amount, as calculated by the Packaging routine, is written to a field on the various packaging and awarding tables. Each Direct Loan financial aid item type disbursement balance has an associated interest rebate amount and an associated loan fee amount.

See Also

Attaching Loan Fees

Defining Financial Aid Item Types

To set up financial aid item types, use the Financial Aid Item Types component (FINANCIAL_AID_ITEM).

In the Financial Aid Item Types component you can define parameters for your financial aid item types. In addition to awarding financial aid item types, you can set up GAP financial aid item types.

This section discusses how to:

• Define financial aid item type descriptions.

• View item type detail.

• Define awarding and rounding rules.

• Define disbursement and anticipated aid.

• Set term minimum and maximum award limits.

• Define default disbursement plans and split codes.

• Attach loan fees.

• Define GAP financial aid item types.

See Also

Setting Up Item Types and Item Type Groups

Pages Used to Define Financial Aid Item Types

Defining Financial Aid Item Type Descriptions

Access the FA Item Type 1 page.

Click the description of the item type to access the Item Type Detail page and view information from the item type table including the effective date and minimum and maximum transaction amounts.

Note. It is recommended that you create new item types and corresponding financial aid item types when enabling the new Perkins MPN process. This allows you to track new Perkins MPNs and does not have a negative impact on those individuals who currently have a signed and valid Perkins MPN on file.

Viewing Item Type Detail

Access the Item Type Detail page.

Charge Priority List	Identifies the charge priority list assigned to the item type. The system uses charge priority lists for financial aid item types that have payment application restrictions. Charge priority lists tell the system how to distribute excess funds and the types of charges towards which the item type can be applied.
Minimum Transaction Amount and Maximum Transaction Amount	Displays the minimum and maximum annual amount established for this item type on the Item Type Amount Edits page.
Refundable Indicator	Indicates whether the item type can be refunded later. This value comes from the Item Type - Miscellaneous Edits page.
Taxable	PeopleSoft Enterprise Payroll uses this field to calculate withholdings on awards of this item type. If you do not use PeopleSoft Payroll, clear this check box. This value comes from the Item Type - Miscellaneous Edits page.

See Also

Defining Charge Priority List Rules

Defining Awarding and Rounding Rules

Access the FA Item Type 2 page.

Awarding Rules

Rounding Rules

Defining Disbursement and Anticipated Aid

Access the FA Item Type 3 page.

Pass Anticipated Aid	Select when an award appears as anticipated aid in the student's Student Financials record. Awards appear as anticipated aid on the student's account when the status of the award matches the value in this field. For example, if you select Accepted, and an award of this financial aid item type has a status of Accepted, the award appears as anticipated aid on the student's bill. For loan awards, the net amount of the loan (award amount minus any loan fee adjustments) is displayed as anticipated aid. Accepted: Awards of this financial aid item type with a status of accepted or authorized appear as anticipated aid. Authorized: Awards of this financial aid item type with a status of authorized appear as anticipated aid. None: Awards of this financial aid item type never appear as anticipated aid. For example, you do not want workstudy to appear as anticipated aid in this system because workstudy funds are not allocated to the student until the money is earned. Therefore, you select None for the workstudy financial aid item type. Offered: Awards of this financial aid item type with a status of offered, accepted, or authorized appear as anticipated aid.
Anticip Aid Expiration Days (anticipated aid expiration days)	An expiration date accompanies each anticipated aid amount and enables you to "expire" a financial aid item type if the criteria for its awarding are not met by the date you assign. The number of days you enter in this field works with several other dates on the anticipated aid record to determine when to expire the anticipated aid. Date is the date the award becomes anticipated aid. Apply Date is the date you are requesting to apply the disbursement to the student's account. The Expiration Date is the later of the two calculated dates: Date + the number of anticipated aid expiration days Or Apply Date + the number of anticipated aid expiration days
Print as Other Resource	In addition to veteran’s benefits and Americorp benefits, you can identify another resource item type that prints as another resource under the award section of the FE FAN. The system does not count this other resource amount in the annual and term totals. It displays this amount in the estimated resources section of the FE FAN as other resources. Select to print the other resource item type under the award section on the FAN.

The following table provides an example of how the expiration date is determined—for the Fall 2004 term, in this example.

See Also

Defining Letter Codes

Setting Up Institution Sets

Setting Term Minimum and Maximum Award Limits

Access the FA Item Type 4 page.

Term Category

Select the term type for which you are specifying minimum and maximum award limits. The automated packaging process uses the financial aid item type term limits from this page, annual item type limits from the Item Type page, fiscal limits, financial aid item type annual limits from the packaging plan, and, if defined, any aggregate area limits to determine the correct amount to award. Term category values are delivered with your system as translate values. These values are used extensively in Student Records. Coordinate any revision of these values with student records staff. Insert additional rows to add more term categories.

Minimum and Maximum

Enter the minimum and maximum award limits for terms of the associated term category. Remember that this amount is per term, not per aid year. To ensure that the Packaging routine processes without fault, minimums should not be less than 1.00 USD. You must set this field to a non-zero amount for your GAP financial aid item types. If the maximum award limit is 400.00 USD (for a term), the item type limit is 1,000.00 USD (for the aid year), and your institution has two semester terms, the maximum award for this financial aid item type is 800.00 USD (400.00 USD for each term). If your institution has three quarter terms, the maximum amount based on the term maximum amount is 1,200.00 USD (400.00 USD for three terms) but this exceeds the item type limit for the aid year. The actual maximum for this financial aid item type is 1,000.00 USD—the item type limit for the aid year. The financial aid item type term maximum cannot override the item type maximum.

See Also

Defining Terms

Defining Default Disbursement Plans and Split Codes

Access the FA Item Type 5 page.

Disbursement Rules

Disbursement plans determine the disbursements across terms, award period, and aid year, but students may not necessarily attend all terms defined for the disbursement plan. The Missing Term Enrollment specifies if disbursements should be split evenly among the remaining terms for which the student is actually enrolled. Select the Split evenly across valid term check box to have the award split among the remaining enrolled terms for the student. For example, if the disbursement plan is for fall, winter, and spring quarters, but the student is only enrolled for fall and spring with the Split evenly across valid term check box selected, the award amount is split evenly between the fall and spring terms.

Clear the Split evenly across valid term check box to have the award amount split according to the relative percentages of the valid terms. For example, a disbursement plan calls for a split of 20%/40%/40% among three terms, but only the first two terms are valid for the student. To determine the relative percentages of the first two terms, the system first adds the disbursement split percentages for the two valid terms (20% + 40% = 60%). Then the system divides each term's original percentage by the new total percentage (60%). So the first term has a relative percentage of 33.33% (20% / 60% = .3333) and the second term has a relative percentage of 66.37% (40% / 60% = .6667). The Packaging routine then determines each term's award amount by multiplying the total award amount by each term's relative percentage.

Note. The Split evenly across valid term check box is not available for Pell Grant awards because Pell amounts for each term are derived at the term level based on Financial Aid Term data, federal EFC, and Pell COA and cannot be simply distributed evenly among the valid enrollment terms.

Default Disbursement Splits

Defining default disbursement plans and split codes decreases the amount of data entry during the establishment of packaging plans and on the award entry pages. You can establish different default disbursement plans and split codes for each career. Insert a row for additional institution/career combinations.

See Also

Defining Disbursement Plans and Split Codes

Attaching Loan Fees

Access the FA Item Type 6 page.

Loan Program

If the loan financial aid item type is associated with an aggregate area on the FA Item Type 1 page, the Loan Program and Loan Interest Attribute fields display the values you selected in the corresponding fields on the Aggregate Aid Limit page for the associated aggregate area. You cannot change these values on this page. If the loan financial aid item type is not associated with an aggregate area, you can select the appropriate value for these two fields on this page.

Loan Fees

Enter the loan fees you want to associate with the loan financial aid item type, including Direct Loan interest rebate fees. You must set up loan fees on the Loan Fee Table page before assigning loan fees to a financial aid item type. The Packaging routine uses the loan fees you assign to calculate the loan fee amount (based on the awarded amount) and to determine from which disbursements to subtract the loan fee amount. Anticipated aid and anticipated disbursements display the net amount of the award—the total award amount less the loan fee amount, plus a Direct Loan interest rebate if eligible. You can add as many loan fees as needed to reflect all the loan fee types that apply to this financial aid item type. When you enter a loan fee, the system populates the Loan Fee Type, Loan Fee Rule, Loan Fee Option, Fee Percent, and Flat Fee fields with the corresponding values set up on the Loan Fee Table page.

Note. To properly calculate the Net Financial Aid amount that appears on a student's billing statement, you must attach the appropriate loan fees to the financial aid item type.

See Setting Up Loan Fees.

Calculating Actual Loan Fees for CommonLine Loans

For some loan financial aid item types, the estimated loan fees determined during the packaging process may not reflect the actual fees charged by the loan servicers. Loans processed using the CommonLine loan business process can have the loan fees in the student’s package automatically updated with the actual loan fee amounts determined by the loan servicer. The estimated loan fees are automatically updated when the loan is guaranteed by the loan servicer and a CommonLine application response record is processed for the student. If you adjust the student's loan award after the loan fees are updated, the Packaging routine uses the actual loan fee rate used by the loan servicer (instead of the loan fees assigned to the financial aid item type) to calculate loan fees for the new award amount.

See Moving CL 4 Inbound Files From Staging Tables to the Database.

Calculating Direct Loan Interest Rebate

You must insert the Direct Loan rebate loan fee you set up on the Loan Fee Table page on the FA Item Type 6 page for all Direct Loan financial aid item types. The up-front interest rebate amount of 1.5 percent of the gross disbursement is calculated at the disbursement level for each Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, and Direct PLUS loan. The interest rebate amount is added after the 3 percent loan fee is subtracted from the gross disbursement amount. For example, a student receives a Direct Loan of 1,000.00 USD for the Fall 2004 term. The net disbursed amount is 985.00 USD because the 3 percent loan fee of 30.00 USD is deducted from the gross amount of the loan, and the 1.5 percent interest rebate of 15.00 USD is added back into the loan.

The loan fee and interest rebate amounts are truncated. This means the system removes cents and uses the remaining whole dollar amount. The dollar value is not rounded up or down. When calculating the combined fee/interest rebate amount and the loan fee amount, the routine carries the result out to three decimal places.

Note. Gross disbursement calculations do not change with the interest rebate implementation. Dollar figures are rounded to the nearest dollar. All disbursements are equal except in cases where a variance may be applied to the last disbursement.

The following table uses a 3,500.00 USD loan amount and is an example of determining combined fee/interest rebate amount, disbursement net amount, loan fee amount, and interest rebate amount for three disbursements.

See Also

Setting Up Loan Fees

Defining GAP Financial Aid Item Types

Use GAP financial aid item types to establish an amount of financial aid that is not met at a particular point in time by a packaging plan.

To create a GAP financial aid item type:

1. Verify that a GAP item type exists in the Item Types component (Set Up SACR, Product Related, Student Financials, Item Types).

   If you need to create a GAP item type, define only the Initial Setup page. When you add the item type, you could use a series of 9’s as the ID to distinguish this item type from other item types since GAP is a unique item type—not shown on award letters and not part of the student’s award record. On the Initial Setup page, enter a description, short description, and any applicable keywords (based on your institution's keyword scheme). Then clear the GL Interface Required check box and select the Financial Aid option in the Classification group box.

2. Add a new financial aid item type, selecting the GAP item type in the add dialog box.

3. Fill out the fields in the Financial Aid Item Types component as you do for any other financial aid item type.

   Keep in mind that when you use the GAP in a packaging plan, the Packaging routine treats the GAP financial aid item type as it does any other financial aid item type, honoring the values and rules you establish in the Financial Aid Item Types component and the percentage of Total Need field in the packaging plan. For example, a packaging plan's FM percentage of Total Need field has a value of 50 percent, the GAP financial aid item type has a term limit of 5,000.00 USD, and you have a student with an FM need of 8,000.00 USD. The Packaging routine assigns a GAP of only 4,000.00 USD to the student, since that is 50 percent of the student's FM need, even though this is less than the term limit.

4. Set your default GAP financial aid item type at the installation level on the Financial Aid Defaults page.

   You can also set default GAP financial aid item types at the academic career and/or academic program level, using aid processing rule sets.

   See Establishing Defaults.

Budgeting Fiscal Limits

To set up fiscal limits, use the Fiscal Item Types component (ITEM_TYP_FISCAL).

This section provides an overview of fiscal limits and discusses how to:

• Assign fiscal limits to financial aid item types.

• Review fiscal fund status.

• Reviewing fiscal fund notes.

• Review fiscal limits for aggregate areas.

Understanding Fiscal Limits

Use the Fiscal Item Types component to set up your financial aid item type fiscal detail. These are the fiscal amounts you want Financial Aid to adhere to when awarding and disbursing the financial aid item type. You must set up fiscal limits for each financial aid item type—if a financial aid item type does not have fiscal limits, you cannot award it.

If you have not set up fiscal limits:

• During manual packaging you receive message 9531: "There is no entry in the ITEM_TYPE_FISCL table for the Item Type associated with this award.

  Please check Set Up SACR, Product Related, Awards, Fiscal Item Types to determine whether Fiscal Limits have been defined for the Item Type being packaged. If Fiscal Limits have not been defined, please add them. If Fiscal Limits have been defined, please contact your System Administrator for assistance."

• During Auto or Mass Packaging, you receive message 9532: "There is no entry in the ITEM_TYPE_FISCL table for the Item Type associated with this Packaging Rule.

  Please check Set Up SACR, Product Related, Awards, Fiscal Item Types to determine whether Fiscal Limits have been defined for the Item Type being packaged. If Fiscal Limits have not been defined, please add them. If Fiscal Limits have been defined, please contact your System Administrator for assistance."

Pages Used to Budget Fiscal Limits

Assigning Fiscal Limits to Financial Aid Item Types

Access the Assign Fiscal Limits page.

Budgeted − Max to Offer	The maximum source of funding you can offer for this financial aid item type.
Budgeted − Max to Accept	The maximum source of funding that can be accepted for this financial aid item type.
Highest − Max to Offer	The sum of all the highest offer amounts from each student who received this financial aid item type award. If a student were initially offered 500.00 USD, then 500.00 USD would be added to this sum. If the student was later offered 800.00 USD, then 500.00 USD would be subtracted and 800.00 USD would be added to the sum because it is the highest amount offered to the student. This amount enables you to know what your maximum total offer amount is for this financial aid item type.
Highest − Max to Accept	The sum of all the highest accepted amounts from each student who received this item type award. This amount enables you to know what your maximum total accepted amount is for this financial aid item type.
Reductions − Max to Offer	The sum of the reduced offer amounts from each student for this financial aid item type. If a student is offered 800.00 USD for this item type and later the offer is reduced to 600.00 USD, then 200.00 USD is added to the sum. If the award is reduced again for the student, then the additional reduction amount is added to the sum.
Reductions − Max to Accept	The sum of the reduced accept amounts from each student for this financial aid item type.

Note. To calculate the gross amount, add the Net amount and the Reductions amount. Gross = Net + Reductions

Here is an example of how the amounts in the highest, reductions, and net columns are calculated. This example tracks only one student. On the page itself, the values shown are added to similar values for all other students who are awarded the financial aid item type.

Reviewing Fiscal Fund Status

Access the Fiscal Fund Status page.

Give financial aid staff who need to know this information but who you do not want to have the ability to change the budgeted amount for a fiscal fund access to this page instead of the Assign Fiscal Limits page.

Reviewing Fiscal Fund Notes

Access the Fiscal Fund Notes page.

Enter comments regarding a fund for informational use by your financial aid staff.

Reviewing Fiscal Limits for Aggregate Areas

Access the Fiscal Aggregate Summary page.

Budgeted − Authorized	The maximum source of funding that can be authorized for this aggregate area.
Net − Authorized	The sum of the current authorized amounts for this financial aid item type. Once this amount equals the budgeted amount, no further awards for this aggregate area can be authorized.

Preparing for Early Financial Aid Offers

To set up early financial aid categories, use the Early Financial Aid Categories component (ERLY_FA_CTG_TBL).

This section provides an overview of early financial aid offers and discusses how to set up early financial aid categories.

Understanding Early Financial Aid Offers

Early financial aid offers are a recruiting tool used by admissions and financial aid departments to provide preliminary financial aid offers to prospective students. The early financial aid offer is constructed independently of financial aid rules and procedures.

You can associate an early financial aid offer with each admission application a prospective student submits. This feature is especially useful for graduate and professional schools which make financial aid offers to hot prospects and is used by financial aid and undergraduate admission offices to provide a competitive advantage in their freshman recruitment process.

Early financial aid offers are made using general financial aid categories that you define on the Early Aid Categories page. Create early financial aid offer categories for all the types of financial aid you are using for early awarding. For example, you may want to create separate early financial aid offer categories for grants, scholarships, work-study, and loans. When creating the early financial aid offer you could specify the estimated amount to be awarded in each category. If you want to display only an estimated total award amount you can define a general category, like Estimated Financial Aid, and use only this category in the early financial aid offer.

Page Used to Prepare for Early Financial Aid Offers

Setting Up Early Financial Aid Offer Categories

Access the Early Aid Categories page.

Comments

Enter a more detailed description of the early financial aid offer category in this field. You can set up this description to print on your early financial aid offer letter.

Setting Up Restricted Aid

To set up restricted aid, use the Restricted Aid Table component (RESTRCTD_AID_SETUP).

Restricted aid includes awards such as scholarships, fellowships, and institutional or private funds with more subjective eligibility requirements. Restricted aid does not refer to federal monies. Awarding restricted aid makes use of the rating scheme and committee features of PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Community. Use the Restricted Aid Table component to set up all of the parameters and conditions for awarding your institution’s restricted funds.

Note. If you are using a review process for evaluating candidates for restricted aid, you must define a rating scheme. You must also complete the pages in the Maintaining Organization Data and Managing Committees sections of the PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Community Fundamentals 9.0 PeopleBook.

This section discusses how to:

• Define restricted aid basic information.

• Define award limits and requirements.

• Attach an external organization.

• Assign a committee.

Pages Used to Set Up Restricted Aid

Defining Restricted Aid Basic Information

Access the Restricted Aid Detail 1 page.

Restricted Aid Type	Identify the restricted aid as a Fellowship or Scholarship.
Renewable	Select if the restricted aid is a renewable aid source.
Application Required	Select whether an application is required, and if so, what kind of application. You can select External, Internal, or No App (no application).
Application Deadline and Application Submit Location	If an application is required, enter the date it must be turned in and where to submit it.
Duration	Enter a numeric value for the duration of the restricted aid type and then indicate in the adjacent field whether this is Days, Months, Terms, or Years.
Development Code	Enter a code of up to four alphanumeric characters. The development code is institution-specific and assists with institutional reporting needs.

Defining Award Limits and Requirements

Access the Restricted Aid Detail 2 page.

Number of Awards	Enter the number of awards you can make from this restricted aid type.
Bill Donor	Select if you bill the donor when the aid is awarded.
Total Funding	Enter the total funding amount for this restricted aid type.
Min Amt (minimum amount) and Max Amt (maximum amount)	Enter the minimum and maximum amounts you can award for this restricted aid type.
Item Type	Enter the financial aid item type associated with this restricted aid type.
Application Requirements	Select the checklist that applicants must finish to apply for this restricted aid type.
Report Requirements	Select the checklist that contains the reporting requirements a staff member fulfills for this restricted aid type.
Recipient Requirements	Select the checklist that contains the tasks award recipients must fulfill.
Rating Scheme	Select the rating scheme that outlines the selection process. Rating schemes are set up in Recruiting and Admissions.

See Also

Managing Checklists

Attaching an External Organization

Access the Restricted Aid Org/Contact page.

External Org ID (external organization ID)	Select the organization ID that represents the organization associated with this restricted aid type. To view any additional organizations associated with this restricted aid type, use the scroll arrows.
Comment	Displays an explanation of the selected organization. Enter any additional information about the organization into this field.
Contact Name	Displays a contact person at the organization. To view additional contacts, use the scroll arrows.
Contact Nbr (contact number)	Indicates there is more than one contact person, or differentiates between different contact information for the same contact person.
Phone	Displays the contact person's phone number.

Assigning a Committee

Access the Restricted Aid Committees page.

Committee	Enter the committee that evaluates the candidates.
Committee Type	Indicates the type of committee.
Comment	Enter additional information about the committee in this field.
Evaluator ID	Enter the ID of a committee member.
Committee Role	Enter the individual's role within the committee.

See Also

Setting Up Committee Templates

Managing Committee Data

Setting Up Award Adjustment Reasons

To set up award adjustment reasons, use the Award Adjustment Reasons component (AWRD_ADJ_RSN_TBL).

Award adjustment reasons are institutionally defined reasons indicating why an award may be adjusted. Award adjustment reasons can be used for clarification when modifying an award and also for statistical tracking purposes. You can enter an award adjustment reason any time you change an award on the award entry pages, but award adjustment reasons are required on the Professional Judgement page. Some sample award adjustment reasons come pre-delivered with Financial Aid, but you can modify, add, and delete these.

This section discusses how to create award adjustment reasons.

Pages Used to Set Up Award Adjustment Reasons

Creating Award Adjustment Reasons

Access the Award Adjustment Reasons page.

Code	Enter a three-character code that represents the award adjustment reason.