Federal regulations require the Mizzou Student Financial Aid office to evaluate the academic progress of each student to ensure financial aid recipients make progress towards graduation.

Students are evaluated annually at the end of the Spring semester which includes a review of Qualitative (GPA), Quantitative (Pace of Completion) and Maximum Time Frame (150%) measurements.

Measurements for graduate professional students (School of Medicine, Law or Vet Medicine) are determined and monitored by the professional schools.

Qualitative Measure

Cumulative Attempted Hours	Minimum Cumulative GPA
Less than 60 credit hours	1.67
60 credit hours or more	2.0
Graduate program	3.0

Quantitative Measure

The quantitative measure of a student’s progress is determined by the completion rate, which is calculated by the number of completed credit hours divided by the credit hours attempted. All students are required to complete two-thirds, or 66.67%, of attempted credit hours.

Any courses marked F, incomplete, no credit, dropped, withdrawn, no grade, in progress, revision of record, repeated courses (only one passing grade will be considered as completed), or waiting on grade are all considered courses attempted. IEP courses do not count towards SAP.

Maximum Timeframe Measure

Students must complete their program within a timeframe no longer than 150% of the published length. All attempted course credits count toward the maximum timeframe limit.

For example, a student’s bachelor’s degree may require 120 credit hours, and the student can attempt up to 180 hours before not meeting SAP standards (120hrs x 150%=180hrs). Students not meeting this measurement will be evaluated after every period of enrollment until their program is complete. Students who are working toward their second bachelor’s degree can attempt up to 225 hours (including the 30 hours needed to earn a degree at Mizzou) before not meeting SAP standards.

Financial Aid Suspension

Students who fail to meet the minimum satisfactory academic progress requirements will be placed on financial aid suspension. If a student is placed on financial aid suspension, federal, state, institutional and some private loans will be withheld until the student has an approved SAP appeal on file or meets the overall SAP measures.

Financial Aid Appeal Process

Students who do not meet the SAP measures and are suspended from receiving financial aid may submit a financial aid SAP appeal if there were extenuating circumstances that contributed to them not meeting the requirements for meeting satisfactory academic progress. Extenuating circumstances may include, but are not limited to the following:

• Death in family
• Family difficulties, such as divorce or illness
• Natural disaster impacting student or family’s home
• Interpersonal problems with friends, roommates, significant others, etc.

Students who have extenuating circumstances may appeal using the following procedures:

1. Submit a completed Satisfactory Academic Progress Appeal Form and may choose to submit any additional supporting documentation with it.
2. The appeal will be reviewed by the financial aid appeal committee. Appeals are reviewed in the order they are received, and priority is given to those that submit their appeal before the start of the semester.
3. Students are notified via email of the committee’s decision. Appeal decisions are final and not eligible for further review. However, if you have new or additional information that wasn’t previously provided, submit a new appeal.

Financial Aid Probation

Financial aid probation is a status assigned to students whose financial aid appeal has been reviewed by the appeal committee and the decision was approved. Students will be required to meet minimum probationary requirements for the semester until the student reaches overall Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) requirements.

Minimum SAP probationary requirements are defined as a term GPA of 1.75 for undergraduate students with less than 60 credit hours and 2.0 for undergraduate students at or over 60 credit hours. Graduate students need to have a term GPA of 3.0. All students will need to have a term completion rate of 66.67%.

At the end of the approved probationary semester, a student’s GPA, completion rate, and/or maximum timeframe will be reviewed to determine if the student has met the minimum probationary requirements. If the student has met the probationary requirements but has not met overall SAP measurements, they will remain on appeal probation. If a student fails to meet the probationary requirements, they are not eligible for aid in future semesters. A student could continue to enroll in courses and pay for expenses out of pocket, or the student could submit an additional SAP appeal if there were extenuating circumstances for not meeting the SAP probationary requirements.

A student who successfully meets overall SAP measurements at the end of the term will be reinstated to a satisfactory status.