Financial Aid Award Reference

Populate Award Reference List

Before any other financial aid setup tasks are completed, it is imperative that you populate the Award Reference List. However, before you can populate this list, the coordinating awards must exist in the TransDoc reference table in the CAMS Manager module. Any fields populated in the TransDoc table will automatically be populated in the corresponding fields in the Award Reference Entry window. These become the default values that display in the student award ledger. You may overwrite the default values in the student award ledger if desired. To access the Award Reference List, from CAMS Enterprise Home page, click Financial Aid >Setup >Award Reference. The Award Reference List window opens.

To add awards to the Awards Reference table:

Right-click on the data grid to add an award, or double-click to modify. The Award Reference Entry window displays.

Award Detail fields are described below:

• Select the Award Type from the drop-down list. This list displays award types from the TransDoc reference table in CAMS Manager.
• Select the award Category (Glossary: FINAwardCategory) from the drop-down list.
• If not automatically populated from the TransDoc table, enter a Description for the award. This description displays on the student billing statements and some award letters.
• Enter the Distribution Pct (percent). Typically this is 100 percent, which means that the entire award amount will be distributed according to the distribution calendar. For each award CAMS tracks the Amount (Gross amount of the award) and the Dist Amount (Net amount of the award which is Amount less Distribution Percent). Selecting a COD Award Type will remove the Distribution Pct field from the detail window as it is not needed with COD Award Types; the Origination Fee Percent and Interest Rebate Percent set in the Yearly COD Parameters are used to calculate the Distribution percent.

Note: If Distribution Pct is not changed from the default of 0 (zero), no award amount will be distributed, even if the Amount field of an award contains a dollar amount.

• If an award requires a student credit check, and you wish to track these results for each award, a Default Credit Status (Glossary: FIN AID Credit Status) may be defined.
• Select the Default Trans Status (Glossary: FINAID Status). For example, values such as Awarded, Approved, Funded, Disbursed, etc. should describe the award status during each step of the packaging process. This status displays on the student portal, award letters, packaging reports, and more. It can also be used during the Check Release and Transfer processes to indicate funds are available and the award should be transferred to the Billing Module to be distributed to the student’s billing ledger. The Direct Loan process uses this value to update the award status during the import of awards from COD.
• Default Code 1 and Default Code 2 are user defined codes (Glossary: FINAID Code 1 and FINAID Code 2), and may be used for institution-specific needs. Population of these fields is not required if your institution does not need to track any additional award information.
• Select Yes or No in the following fields:
  • Show on Statement – This must be set to Yes in order for pending awards to display on student billing statements. If set to No, the award would not display on a student billing statement even if “Show Pending Aid” is selected as billing statement criteria.
  • Is Award a Loan – This differentiates awards that are loans.

  Private Loan - is disabled unless ‘Is Award a Loan’ is marked yes. Gainful employment export reports gross amount of private educational loans received by students. The amount will be reported if the program attendance status during award year equals ‘G’ or ‘W’.

  • Is Award Active – This must be set to Yes in order for the award to be available when packaging aid. If an award is no longer offered, setting this field to No will prevent it from being applied to students.
  • Need Based –Used as a Financial Aid BYOR report criteria to aid in reporting on need based or non-need based awards.
• Life Time Maximum amount does not drive functionality and does not need to be populated here. Life Time Maximum amount is imported during the ISIR import process, and can be defined in Yearly Setup.
• EDE/PowerFAIDS Fund Code is populated only if awards are being imported into CAMS from an external source. It is used to match awards between an external source and CAMS.
• Select Dollars or Cents for the Award Rounding preference. Split awards will be rounded to the nearest Dollar or Cent depending on this selection.

Note: The Award Rounding setting does not affect COD awards. COD awards will follow the COD rounding/truncating rules regardless of the setting for Award Rounding. COD awards are designated by the COD Award Type drop-down selection.

For Prioritized Packaging, the setting here for Award Rounding will determine if the award is rounded in dollars or cents. How the award is rounded is determined by the setting in Award Methodologies in Prioritized Packaging. The Award Methodology setting of "No Rounding" will not consider what is set here.

• Default # Slots field has no functionality and should not be used.
• The Department field is used for departmental security. If a department is entered in this field then only those users who belong to this department will be allowed to add or modify this award. If this field is left blank then anyone with permissions to award financial aid will be able to apply this award to a student. The Award Type list will not display awards that have a Department selected if the user does not have that department assigned in their CAMS user profile.
• Typically all awards, other than unsubsidized loans, should pay down need. Select Include Remaining Need for all awards that should pay down the student’s need (COA minus Alt Primary EFC). If an award is to pay down need, do not check Include EFC when checking this as Include EFC will override Include Remaining Need and will cause an award to be limited by Cost of Attendance.
• Select Include EFC for all awards that are limited by the Cost of Attendance such as DL Unsubsidized or DL Plus. DL Unsubsidized and DL Plus must have Include EFC checked. Since Unsub and Plus loans do not require need to exist, when need is zero, students are limited to borrowing no more than their EFC amount. Setting Include EFC for Unsub and Plus loans will limit these loans to the Alt Primary EFC amount when the amount of need is zero. Include Remaining Need should not be checked.
• EFA (Expected Financial Aid) is only used in Prioritized Packaging and should be used for institutional-type awards that the student should always get, regardless of remaining need, if they meet the criteria set in the Award Methodology. If Include Remaining Need is also selected, this award will bring down need and could cause need to go into negative numbers.
• The Note field is used to remark about the specific award and can be pulled into various reports from Financial Aid BYOR and Award Letters. Such uses might include award renewal requirements (i.e. GPA, Student Load, College level, etc.).
• State Reporting Code used for certain state reports.. Data for this field is stored in the FinancialAwardRef SQL table.

COD Award Setup

If your institution plans to handle COD awards using the COD Integration functionality in Tools >Export >Financial Aid >COD Export, the award must have specific items set in the Award Reference Entry detail form and in the Yearly COD Parameters grid on the Award Reference List window in order to be included in COD Export (send) files.

To view the tables required for COD set up, see Financial Aid Overview.

Award Reference Entry Detail Form

• COD Award Type must be associated with the award so the award can be included in the COD Integration Send file. This list is populated by Unit4 Education Solutions and may not be changed. Selecting a COD Award Type will remove the Distribution Pct field from the detail window as it is not needed with COD Award Types; the Origination Fee Percent and Interest Rebate Percent set in the Yearly COD Parameters are used to calculate the Distribution percent.
• Disclosure Statement Print Code is included in COD Send files to indicate who is responsible for printing disclosure statements for loans originated at your institution. Valid selections are as follows:
  • COD prints and sends to Borrower
  • COD reprint
  • School Prints and Sends to Borrower
• Additional COD Eligibility Award must be checked for additional Unsubsidized loans that a student could become eligible for when a Plus loan is denied or for additional Pell. The additional Unsubsidized or Pell award must be a different Award Type than the original award and use the same COD Award Type.
  
  When the additional Unsubsidized award is exported via COD Export, the original Unsubsidized loan will have the Unsub Indicator set to False and the additional award will have the Unsub Indicator set to True indicating to COD this is an additional eligibility Unsubsidized loan.
  
  When the additional Pell award is exported via COD Export, the Additional Eligibility Indicator will be set to True and the original Pell award Additional Eligibility Indicator will be set to False.

Note: The additional Pell award Financial Award Amount will be the total of the original and the additional Pell awards.

• Additional COD Eligibility Award HPPA Indicates whether the student is eligible for a Health Profession Programs additional unsubsidized loan amount. Note: The COD System will not allow Foreign Schools to process the HPPA Flag on Direct Loan Unsubsidized awards. This is an exception only applying to Foreign Schools. A new award level reject edit will be added to the COD System if a HPPA Flag is submitted on a Direct Loan Unsubsidized award from a Foreign School.

Yearly COD Parameters Grid

In order to package Direct Loan COD Award Types of DLSubsidized, DLUnsubsidized, and DLPLUS for multiple Academic (Award) Years, the COD Yearly Parameters Grid must have the appropriate Origination Fee Percent and the Interest Rebate Percent defined for each Award Distribution Date range within an Academic Year. These amounts may be changed as necessary and all awards linked to the Yearly COD Parameter may have these amounts updated from this window. This will be used to calculate the Origination Fee Amount and Interest Rebate Amount on each of the aforementioned COD Award Types. The award Amount field displays the gross amount of the award, and the Dist Amount field displays the net amount of the award.

To Add Yearly COD Parameter to Award:

1. From the CAMS Enterprise Home page, click Financial Aid >Setup >Award Reference to open the Award Reference List window.
2. Highlight the award in the top grid for which you wish to set the Origination Fee Percent and Interest Rebate Percent.
3. Click the View Default Award Amounts/Yearly COD Parameters link to toggle between the two in the lower grid and to display the Yearly COD Parameters grid.
4. Right-click in the Yearly COD Parameters grid to open a new detail window or double-click a row to modify. The Yearly COD Parameters detail displays with the Award Type field populated.
5. Select the Academic Year from the drop-down. The first record created for an Award in an Academic Year is automatically set as the Default Record and the Award Distribution Dt From and Award Distribution Dt To fields are populated with the dates set in Yearly Setup for that Academic Year. Additional records in the Academic Year will automatically have the Default Record unchecked. This field cannot be changed.

Note: CAMS will use the default Yearly COD Parameter record for any Awards within the Academic Year whose distribution dates do not fall within another Yearly COD Parameter in that Academic Year. The default parameter cannot be used to update fees in existing awards if the Origination Fee Percent and/or Interest Rebate Percent amounts are changed.

6. Enter the Origination Fee Percent and Interest Rebate Percent for this award in the selected Academic Year.
7. Click Add (or Update) to save or Cancel to close the detail window without saving.
8. Additional Yearly COD Parameter entries may be added for the same Academic Year to accommodate changes that may be mandated during an Award Year. The dates entered in Award Distribution Dt From and Award Distribution Dt To may not overlap between additional parameter entries (with the exception of the Default Record).
9. After adding a new parameter or updating the Origination Fee Percent and/or Interest Rebate Percent, all student records for this Academic Year/Award with a Distribution Date that falls within the date range set in this parameter may be updated in mass by clicking Update Fees. A pop-up will display indicating the number of Awards that were updated.

Note: Only Awards that have NOT been transferred to Billing, Locked, or Exported to COD will have amounts updated upon changing the Yearly COD Parameter Origination Fee Percent and clicking Update Fees.

10. To remove a Yearly COD Parameter from the grid on the Award Reference List window, highlight the row then click Delete.

Note: The default record cannot be deleted unless it is the only record for the selected Academic Year.

Restrict Awards to GPA Groups

When applying awards through single student packaging via Financial Aid >Packaging >Single or through Financial Aid >Maintenance >Awards, you may restrict certain awards to a particular GPA group. For example, students in an undergraduate program may not be eligible for awards reserved for Masters Program students. If the GPA Grouping field in the student’s Status record (Registration >Academic >Status) for the awarded term is blank then the all awards will be available for awarding, even if the award is limited to certain GPA Groups. If a GPA Grouping value is selected in the Status record, then the student will only be eligible to receive awards which have that same GPA Grouping value defined in the Award Reference table. Note that Priority Packaging ignores this designation.

To Assign GPA Group to Award:

1. From the Award Reference Entry detail window, click Toggle Display GPA Group Restrictions to display the GPA group restriction area.
2. Right-click in the Restrict Award to the following GPA Groups data grid. A blank GPA restriction window opens.
3. Select the GPA Group that is allowed to receive the award.
4. Click Add to select the GPA Group and return to the data grid or Cancel to exit without saving.

Note: More than one GPA Group can be assigned to receive the award. The Award Type drop-down will not display awards with a GPA Group restriction if the student does not have that GPA Group assigned to their student status record.

Restrict Awards to ISAP or GSAP

When applying awards through single student packaging via Financial Aid >Packaging >Single or manual packaging through Financial Aid >Maintenance >Awards, you may restrict certain awards to particular Institutional Satisfactory Academic Progress or Governmental Satisfactory Academic Progress as set in Student Status. You may add multiple entries to allow different Student Status SAP entries to be awarded these awards. Students with blank entries in the Student Status SAP drop-downs will not be restricted by settings here.

To Assign GPA Group to Award:

1. From the Award Reference Entry detail window, click Toggle Display SAP Institutional Status Restrictions or Toggle Display SAP Governmental Status Restrictions to display that SAP restriction window below the toggle.
2. Right-click in the Restrict Award to the Following SAP Institutional (or Governmental) Statuses. A blank detail window opens.
3. Select the SAP Institutional (or Governmental) Status that is allowed to receive the award.
4. Click Add to select the SAP status and return to the Award Reference detail window or click Cancel to exit without saving.
5. Repeat this process to add any additional statuses desired for this award.

Award Comments

Award Comments can be added to each award to allow standard information to appear on the Priority Packaging Award Letter available at the end of the Priority Packaging process and both the Standard By Package and Columns by Package Award Letters available from Financial Aid >Report >Award Letters. To add an Award Comment, simply click Toggle Display Award Comment and then enter the appropriate comment. Comments are saved when the award record is added or updated.

Default Award Amounts

Exact dollar amounts for awards can be based on the number of credits for which a student is registered in a given term. While it is technically possible to use this functionality, a more efficient process using Prioritized Packaging Award Methodology is available. If you are using Prioritized Packaging and you would like awards based on student load to be auto-adjust, click the Auto Repackage Students (Prioritized Packaging Process) checkbox in CAMS Manager >Configuration >Misc tab. Detailed instructions are located in online help and in Financial Aid Processes.pdf. If you are not using Prioritized Packaging and would like more information on setting default award amounts, please refer to Default Award Amounts.

Note: It is not possible to use both Default Award Amounts AND Prioritized Packaging Award Methodology. The Misc tab in CAMS Manager >Configuration allows either the Auto Adjust Financial Awards (Default Award Amounts) checkbox or the Auto Repackage Students (Prioritized Packaging Process) checkbox to be selected. It does not allow both checkboxes to be selected simultaneously.

Generate Award SSI Files

Click Generate to generate SSI files (which allows awards to display in the Award Type drop-down list) when you add awards to the award reference table or anytime you modify the name of an award.