Funding Estimate Calculating Less Than Full Pell for Full-Time Enrollment

Issue

A new funding estimate is created for a student who is enrolled full-time, but the system calculates a Pell Grant amount less than the expected full-time annual award. The FA office may ask whether they should manually override the amount or resubmit the FE.

Why This Happens

The Pell Grant calculation on an FE is driven by several factors beyond just enrollment intensity, including:

• Lifetime Eligibility Used (LEU): If the student has used prior Pell eligibility at another institution, the remaining LEU will reduce the calculated award.
• SAI (Student Aid Index): A lower SAI may result in a higher award, but a changed SAI after a corrected ISIR can also reduce the calculated amount unexpectedly.
• Cost of Attendance (COA) proration: For non-standard program lengths or clock-hour programs, the Pell calculation is prorated based on the program's scheduled hours relative to an academic year. If the program's COA or credit/clock hour structure is misconfigured, the calculated award will be lower than expected.
• Summer enrollment: Summer Pell awards use remaining eligibility from the prior or upcoming award year, which can result in a partial award even at full-time enrollment.

Steps to Resolve

1. Check the student's LEU percentage in NSLDS. If LEU is above 0%, the Pell award will be reduced proportionally — this is expected behavior and cannot be overridden.
2. Verify the enrollment intensity and credit/clock hours loaded on the FE match the student's actual schedule.
3. For summer enrollment, confirm which award year the FE is drawing from and how much Pell eligibility remains in that year.
4. Do not manually inflate the Pell amount on the FE. If the calculated amount appears incorrect after reviewing LEU and enrollment data, submit a ticket to CI Financial Aid with the student name, ID, FE number, expected Pell amount, and the amount calculated by the system.

Important Notes

• Manually overriding a Pell amount above what the system calculates is a compliance risk. Only adjust the FE if directed to do so by the CI Financial Aid team after review.
• If the ISIR has been corrected recently (e.g., SAI change), the corrected ISIR may need to be pushed to the student's Campus Ivy record before creating the FE.