MSU Repeated Coursework Policy
The Department of Education has implemented regulations governing repeated coursework. These regulations impact students who repeat courses which may affect financial aid eligibility and awards, including the Federal Pell Grant, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG), Federal Direct Loans and Federal Work Study.
These regulations prevent the Financial Aid Office from paying for a course that has been passed and repeated more than one time. For a repeated course to be counted towards your enrollment status for financial aid purposes, you may only repeat a previously passed course once (a total of two attempts). If you enroll in a previously repeated and passed course for a third time, this course will not count towards your enrollment for financial aid purposes. Examples of repeated courses:
- Allowable: Repeated courses may be included if the student received an unsatisfactory or failing grade. There is no limit on the number of attempts allowable if the student does not receive a passing grade. Grades of A, B, C, D, P, or S are considered passing grades.
- Allowable: Student is enrolled in 15 credit hours which includes 3 credits repeating a previously passed course. Because the student is enrolled in a minimum of 12 credits which are not repeats, the student's financial aid eligibility is not impacted by the repeat. Note: If a student is receiving only federal student loans and is only enrolled in a minimum of 6 credits that are NOT repeats, the student’s financial aid eligibility will usually not be impacted by the repeat.
- Not allowable: Student receives a D in a course and decides to repeat the course to improve his/her GPA. The student may repeat this passed course one time, but if the student wants to repeat it a second time, the second repeat would not count for financial aid eligibility. For example, a student enrolls in 12 credits, 3 of those credits are a second‐time repeat. As a result, only 9 credits will count for financial aid eligibility.
Details of the new regulations
- Repeated enrollment that is not aid eligible will be excluded from the student's enrollment status for the term.
- Federal Title IV financial aid will be recalculated based on the student's adjusted enrollment status.
- This recalculation will be applied regardless of whether a student received aid for previous course enrollments.
- Some courses are repeatable per college policy and are not restricted by these regulations. These courses are specifically identified in the Minot State University as “Repeatable for credit” in the Course Descriptions section. (Example: MUSC 102 Private Piano)
- All repeated courses do affect financial aid satisfactory academic progress calculations. A repeated course along with the original attempt must be counted as attempted credits.
