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Rights and Responsibilities

Your financial aid rights include

  1. Requesting a meeting with a Financial Aid Counselor to review and discuss your application and eligibility for awards.
  2. Requesting a paper copy of your offer letter.
  3. Making a written request to our office to remove access to the financial aid information in the my.IllinoisState system, which is the university self-help Web application.

Your financial aid responsibilities include

  1. Completing the FAFSA application before the November 15th preferential filing deadline and the summer application if you will be attending summer school every year.
  2. Creating a budget and monitoring your expenses throughout the academic year.
  3. Keeping your university address up to date.
  4. Reporting any outside scholarship or other awards not listed on your offer letter to the Financial Aid Office.
  5. Responding to requests for information by the University.
  6. Reviewing your awards and the eligibility requirements for each award you receive.
  7. Withdrawal: Federal regulations state that financial aid is earned by attending class. You have not earned 100% of your financial aid until you have attended 60% of the term. If you withdraw before this date, a portion of your financial aid has not been earned.
    The unearned portion is equal to the percentage of the term remaining on the date of withdrawal. Your financial aid eligibility will be recalculated based on your actual period of attendance - you may be asked to repay a portion of the aid that had been distributed to you.
  8. Failure to Earn Credit: If you fail to earn credit for any of your classes (receive grades of F, W, I and/or NC), federal regulations require the Financial Aid Office to assume you stopped attending your classes. In order to retain any of your financial aid, you must provide proof that you attended classes.
    If you did stop attending class, you are treated as an unofficial withdrawal. This means that the midpoint of the term is used as your last date of attendance and your aid eligibility is reduced by up to 50%.
    This will result in you owing funds back to the university unless you can provide documentation of attendance past the 60% point of the term.