Financial Aid Packaging

Use Financial Aid Packaging to create a financial aid status and apply a standard predefined package for students based on selected criteria. This process combines the Automated Pell Processing and the Load Award Sequences automation options plus creates a financial aid status when applying award sequences, all in one process. Packages can be created for a single student (see below), or for multiple students. If a student's financial aid awards are packaged for the year under a single financial aid status record, all the awards for that package will display in the student portal under their financial aid section.

Prior to applying a package, you must have the following items in place:

Academic Year

Financial Aid Year

Packaged Load

Direct Cost

Pell Table (Required only if using the Auto Load Pell option and prior to 2024-2025 academic year)

To apply a package to a single student:

Financial Aid awards can be packaged for single students. During the process of awarding these students through the packaging process, when applying an award or a sequence a financial aid status record will be created, if none exists. If a student's financial aid awards are packaged for the year (vs. just a single term) under a single financial aid status record then all the awards for that package will display in the student portal under their financial aid section. For example, if a student was packaged and received an award for $2000 dollars split 50/50 over FA-10 and SP-11 then when the student goes to the student portal for FA-10 they will see both awards for both terms.

From CAMS Enterprise Home page, click Financial Aid >Packaging >Single. The Single Packaging window opens to the Setup tab.
Select the appropriate Academic and Financial Aid Year. These are defined in Financial Aid >Setup >Yearly Setup.
Select the appropriate Packaged as Load amount. The monetary amount awarded to the student varies depending on Packaged Load. For instance, a student packaged with Full Time may receive $1500, and a student packaged with Half Time may receive $750. CAMS also compares the Packaged Load amount with the Student Load field in the Student Status window which reflects actual number of credits for which the student is registered. If this amount is not the same, it will display when you generate the Status Exception Report in Financial Aid >Reports >BYOR.
Select the appropriate Direct Cost. Direct costs reflect the average amount that a student in a specified program may be charged. These are defined in Financial Aid >Setup >Yearly Setup >Budget Costs.
Place a check in the box next to Update Existing Status Records in order to have CAMS apply the status changes to any existing status records.
Select the type of award you are going to package from the Distribution for Award Type drop-down.
Click Load From Calendar to load the distribution terms and dates that have been set up in Yearly setup for the selected Academic Year and Financial Aid Year.
Double-click a distribution row in the grid to modify or right-click in the grid to manually add a distribution.
Highlight a row in the grid and click Delete to remove a distribution.

Note: The first time an award is selected for Academic Year and Financial Aid Year the distribution grid will be blank. Any distributions set up for an award will be retained and displayed each subsequent time the award is selected for that Academic Year / Financial Aid Year.

Click the Package tab. The selections made on the Setup tab display at the top.
Click the lookup icon to select a student. Any awards already existing for the Academic Year / Financial Aid Year will display in the Packaged Awards grid.
In the Add Option drop-down select Award Type to package a single award, Award Sequence to package any award sequences set up for the selected Direct Cost, or Pell if you want CAMS to automatically load Pell awards.
Select the Award Type. The Award Type must have the distributions set up on the Setup tab. A pop-up message will display if the distributions have not yet been set up.
Click Add to add the award to the Packaged Awards grid.
Highlight a row in the grid and click Delete to remove the Packaged Award. Double-click a row in the grid to modify an award. Existing awards can be deleted or modified from the grid if the award isn’t locked and the user permissions allow the deletion of awards in Financial Aid Maintenance. Deleting an existing award will either delete the award from the students Financial Aid Maintenance record or zero it out as applicable.
Click Process to add the package to the student. If a financial status record exists for the student in the Academic and Financial Years defined in this form, CAMS associates the awards with the existing financial status record. If a status record does not exist, CAMS will create a Financial Status record when packaging a single Award Type or an Award Sequence. The Financial Status record for a student must already exist with the Primary EFC, Packaged for Load, and Default Cost Type populated in order to package Pell.

Note: For those Awards that do not need to be applied according to a distribution calendar across multiple terms, it is most efficient to add them in Financial Aid >Maintenance >Awards tab.