Disbursement Approval Criteria

You can use the Disbursement Approval Criteria page to configure the criteria Anthology Student applies to approve disbursements when you use the Approve Disbursements to Pay process to have Anthology Student evaluate and automatically approve disbursements. Select the Processes tile > expand Financial Aid > select Approve Disbursements to Pay.

When one or more requirements are not met, the disbursement fails and the reasons for the failure are displayed on the Approve Disbursements to Pay page.

You can specify the financial aid documents that will be checked when disbursements are evaluated against the disbursement approval criteria. Because different disbursement approval criteria can be associated with different fund sources, an institution can have different lists of financial aid documents checked within the approval criteria for different fund sources when disbursements are auto-approved.

For program versions configured to use an academic calendar that uses clock hours or credit hours without terms, the disbursement approval process relies on the Student Pace Evaluation (SPE) feature to manage the disbursement dates. SPE can adjust the dates of a payment period and ensures that all credits or hours and weeks have been met before the next payment period starts. A disbursement is approved if the date of the disbursement is equal to the current date. For more details, refer to Background for Student Pace Evaluation.

If student are enrolled in a non-term program version and they have a stub loan period, Anthology Student does not use completed credits or hours and weeks as criteria when approving Direct loan disbursements associated with the stub loan period. For more details, refer to Background for Overlapping Loans and NSLDS.

The disbursement approval criteria you specify here can be selected for the campuses for a fund source when you configure fund sources. (Select the Configuration tile > expand Financial Aid > select Fund Sources.)

Prerequisites

You must have Financial Aid - Configuration - Manage authorization.

You should also be familiar with the: 

  • Processing for stub loan periods for the Min Credits Completed and Min Hours Completed fields

  • Calculation for FA Credits / Clock Hours field

For more information, refer to the Background for Specific Criteria.

Access Method

Select the Configuration tile > expand Financial Aid > select Disbursement Approval Criteria.

Procedure to Add or Edit Items

  1. Review the values of the records in the grid.

  2. If you want to:

    • Add a new list item, select the New button on the toolbar

    • Add a new list item by copying and modifying an existing list item, select the row in the list and the Duplicate button on the toolbar

    • Edit an existing list item, select the Name in the list

  3. Specify or change the following values.

    ActiveClosed Specifies whether the associated record is active.

    CodeClosed The alphanumeric code assigned to the item by your institution. In most cases, codes must be unique.

    NameClosed The descriptive name of the item.

  4. Under Disbursement Criteria, specify or change the following values.

    Accepted OriginationClosed When selected, specifies that the Pell Grant, Direct PLUS loan, Direct Subsidized loan, or Direct Unsubsidized loan must have an origination status of Accepted for the disbursement for the grant or loan to meet the criteria.

    Bachelor DegreeClosed Select Bachelor Degree to specify that the student must have a bachelor's degree to meet the criteria. Select CANNOT have Bachelor Degree to specify that the student must not have a bachelor's degree to meet the criteria.  

    When you configure the “Bachelor Degree” field and select the Queue Approval button in Processes > Financial Aid > Approve Disbursement to Pay, the following validation sequence occurs:

    1. The system validates if an ISIR is on file and determines the degree level in the ISIR.

    2. If no ISIR is on file or the degree is not specified in the ISIR, the system checks the degree level in the Previous Education and completed prior Enrollment.

    3. If multiple records are available in the Previous Education, the system determines the graduation date and uses the degree level from the latest record.

    4. If there is no Previous Education and the student has completed a prior Enrollment, the system uses the degree level from the prior Enrollment.

    5. If multiple records are available in the prior Enrollment, the system uses the degree level with the latest graduation date.

    6. If both Previous Education and prior Enrollment records are available, the system uses the degree level with the latest graduation date.

    If any of the above conditions are met, the Approve Disbursements to Pay batch will be approved, otherwise, it will fail.

    Days after Student LDAClosed Specifies the maximum number of days that can be between the disbursement date and the last date of attendance (LDA) for the student for the disbursement to meet the criterion. If the LDA for the student is empty or NULL, the criterion is not met.

    Document EvaluationClosed If you want to evaluate the documents in the list for the student, specifies the method Anthology Student uses to determine if they meet the criteria. If you select, Document Completion Date, Anthology Student checks if the financial aid documents in the document list have a completion date. It is populated when all the financial aid documents for the award year have been approved. The Document Completion Date will be evaluated against the Scheduled Disbursement Date. If you select Missing Documents, Anthology Student displays the Missing Documents list so that you can specify the financial aid documents that must be in the document list for the student for the award year and campus with a status of Approved. A document is considered missing and the criterion is not met if it was configured for the Financial Aid module and has a status of Requested or Requested – Required and has not been received or has a status other than Approved. If the document was configured as Approved, it is considered approved.

    Enrollment Status = Packaged to Status Closed When selected, specifies that the current student status must match their packaged to status for the disbursement to meet the criteria. If the two statuses are not equal, the criterion is not met. Anthology Student compares the current student status to the value specified for Packaged To Status on their Academic Years tab (Select the Students tile > select the name in the Students list > expand Financial Aid > select the Awarding tile > Academic Years tab.)

    Entrance InterviewClosed When selected, specifies that the student must have had an entrance or counseling interview to meet the criteria. The date of the entrance or counseling interview is associated with an enrollment rather than with the student. However, once a student has had the interview, the association is made with all enrollments.

    Evaluation ModeClosed Specifies how the criteria are evaluated. Select Current Enrollment to evaluate the criteria using the information for the current enrollment. Select Disbursement Term to evaluate the criteria using the information for the term.   

    If you configure the disbursement approval criteria by:

    • Enrollment (Evaluation Mode = Current Enrollment), Anthology Student checks the SAP status for the enrollment as a whole, i.e., it checks whatever coursework is in progress.

      If SAP has never been run for an enrollment, the Approve Disbursements to Pay process will not perform this check or hold disbursements for this criteria. An SAP status being reported as Not Calculated will not produce an exception or hold a disbursement for this criteria.

    • Term (Evaluation Mode = Disbursement Term), Anthology Student checks the SAP status using the payment period/term associated with the disbursement.

      If no SAP status is found in the term summary, the previous payment period/term with an SAP status is used for the evaluation. This is because SAP is typically not run until after a term/payment period has been completed and often not run against every disbursement term/payment period.

    FA Credits / Clock HoursClosed For non-Title IV disbursements for payment periods and program versions that have been configured to have a value for one of the FA Clock to Credit Conversion Rate fields, select Attempted or Earned in the FA Credits / Clock Hours list to specify that the number of FA credits or clock hours attempted or earned must be greater than or equal to the minimum value calculated by Anthology Student to meet the criteria. If you want to check that the prior payment period is completed for non-term programs before automatically approving a non-Title IV disbursement, select Earned. If you do not select Earned, Anthology Student does not check if a prior payment period is completed. For Title IV disbursements from fund sources with disbursement approval criteria configured, Anthology Student always checks to make sure prior payment periods have been completed. For additional information about how the value is calculated, refer to the background for this topic.

    First Time Borrower 30 Day Rule Closed For Subsidized Stafford, Unsubsidized Stafford, Direct, and Direct Unsubsidized loans, select the check box to specify that the disbursement date must be greater than 30 days from the start date of the term for the disbursement to meet the criteria. For all other fund sources, Anthology Student approves the criteria.

    Grad ProgramClosed Select Graduate Level Program to specify that the student must be in a graduate program to meet the criteria. The program version must be configured with a degree level that is considered a graduate degree. Select CANNOT be in Grad Program to specify that the student must not be in a graduate-level program to meet the criteria.

    Include Attendance for All Course Terms Closed If you selected Disbursement Term in the Evaluation Mode list, select the check box to have Anthology Student include the attendance for all the courses in the term.

    ISIR on File Closed Select the check box to specify that a valid ISIR must be on file for the student for a disbursement to meet the criteria. Anthology Student checks the ISIR received date to determine if a valid ISIR was received. The date is displayed on the Awards tab (Select the Students tile > select the name in the Students list > expand Financial Aid > select the Awarding tile > Awards tab.) The ISIR must also not have Reject Codes on it to be considered valid. Reject codes are displayed on the ISIRs Received page (Select the Students tile > select the name in the Students list > expand Financial Aid > select the ISIRs Received tile > select an Award Year > select an ISIR ID > select Corrections.)

    Max days after Loan period End Date Closed For Subsidized Stafford, Unsubsidized Stafford, Direct, Direct Unsubsidized, Direct PLUS, Other need based, Other non-need based, and Perkins loans, specifies that the number of days between the end date of the loan period and the disbursement date must be less than the value you specify to meet the criteria. For other types of fund sources, Anthology Student approves the criteria. If there is no end date for the loan period, Anthology Student approves the criteria.

    Max days prior to Term Start date Closed Specifies that the number of days between the start date for the term and the disbursement date must be less than the value you specify to meet the criteria. If you specify 0, the start date of the term and the disbursement date must be the same to meet the criteria. If there is no term associated with the disbursement, the criteria are met.

    Max Diff between Actual and Exp Disb AmountClosed Specifies that the expected amount of the disbursement does not differ from the actual amount of the disbursement by more than an amount defined in the criteria. If the amount of zero is set on the criteria, the received disbursement amount must be exactly equal to the amount expected for the criteria to pass.

    Min Credits Completed Closed This criterion applies to program versions configured to use academic calendars that use credit hours that also do not have a value specified for Conversion Rate for Program Version Use Clock to Credit. It specifies the minimum number of credits completed must be greater than or equal to this value to meet the criteria. Anthology Student evaluates this criterion based on enrollment status credits. For a disbursement to pass this criterion, the sum of the enrollment status credits for all the courses that the student has must be greater than or equal to the number specified for this criterion. Credits are considered completed if the student received a letter grade that was configured to include in credits earned.

    Min Credits Scheduled Closed This criterion applies to program versions configured to use academic calendars that use credit hours that also do not have a value specified for Conversion Rate for Program Version Use Clock to Credit. It specifies that the minimum number of credits scheduled plus the number of credits attempted for the student must be greater than or equal to this value to meet the criterion. Anthology Student evaluates the criterion based on enrollment status credits. The sum of the enrollment status credits for all courses that the student has attempted, plus the enrollment status credits for courses the student is currently scheduled for, must be greater than or equal to the number specified for this criterion. Credits are considered attempted if the student receives a letter grade that was configured to be included in credits attempted.

    Min Cum GPAClosed The minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) for the student must be greater than or equal to this value to meet the criteria.

    Min Enrollment Status Closed The minimum enrollment status a student must have to meet the criteria. The values are Less than half time, Half Time, 3/4 Time, and Full Time.

    Min Hours AttendedClosed Specifies the minimum number of hours that a student must attend to meet the criteria. In most cases, you will specify either Min Hours Attended or Min Pct Attended. If you specify both, the disbursement must meet both criteria.

    Min Hours CompletedClosed This criterion applies to program versions configured to use academic calendars that use clock hours that also do not have a value specified for Conversion Rate for Program Version Use Clock to Credit. It specifies that the minimum number of hours completed must be greater than or equal to this value to meet the criteria. Anthology Student evaluates this criterion based on enrollment status clock hours. For a disbursement to pass this criterion, the sum of the enrollment status hours for all the courses that the student has completed must be greater than or equal to the number specified for this criterion. Hours are considered completed if the student received a letter grade that was configured to be included in credits earned.

    Min Hours ScheduledClosed This criterion applies to program versions configured to use academic calendars that use hours that also do not have a value specified for Conversion Rate for Program Version Use Clock to Credit. It specifies that the minimum number of hours scheduled plus the number of hours attempted for the student must be greater than or equal to this value to meet the criterion. Anthology Student evaluates the criteria based on enrollment status hours. For a disbursement to pass this criterion, the sum of the enrollment status hours for all the courses the student has attempted, plus the enrollment status hours for courses the student is currently scheduled for, must be greater than or equal to the number specified for this criterion. Hours are considered attempted if the student receives a letter grade that was configured to be included in credits attempted.

    Min Numeric AverageClosed The minimum numeric average for the student. It should be greater than or equal to the minimum value defined in the criteria.

    Min Payment period Hours attendedClosed Specifies the minimum number of hours that the student must attend in the payment period to meet the criteria.

    Min Pct Attendance Closed The percentage of attendance achieved by the student. It should be greater than or equal to the minimum value defined in the criteria. When specified as criteria for disbursement approval, in most cases, you will specify either Min Hours Attended or Min Pct Attended. If you specify both, the disbursement must meet both criteria.

    Pell Enrollment Intensity - Packaged = ActualClosed Select this check box if you want the Disbursement Approval Criteria policy to compare the Enrollment Intensity (EI) used to calculate the disbursement amount against the actual EI calculated for the term. Since the Anthology Student defaults to 100% during initial packaging, the actual EI could be different by the time disbursement posting occurs. This evaluation is specific to Pell Grants for term-based program versions and is used by the Approve Disbursements to Pay and Eligibility Review processes.  

    For more details about this configuration option, refer to Enrollment Intensity Calculation for Pell Grants.

    Originated/Certified before LDAClosed When selected, specifies that the criterion for a loan is not met if the student temporarily or permanently withdraws before the loan is originated or certified.

    Residency StateClosed If you want Anthology Student to verify the state of residency and number of years, select the state. If you select a value, you must also specify a value in the Residency State Years field. Anthology Student checks the dependency status for the student and then uses the state from the ISIR or FAFSA.

    Residency State YearsClosed Specifies the number of years prior to the award year that the person must have been a resident of the state selected in the Residency State field to meet the criteria. For example, if you specify a value of 5 and Anthology Student is evaluating the 2016-2017 award year, the person needs to have been a resident of the state since January 2011.

    Student Meets SAP Closed When selected, specifies that SAP must be met for a disbursement to meet the criterion. If you selected Current Enrollment in the Evaluation Mode list, Anthology Student checks the SAP status for the enrollment. If you selected Disbursement Term in the Evaluation Mode list, Anthology Student checks the SAP status for the payment period or term. If there is no SAP status for the payment period or term, Anthology Student checks the SAP status for the previous payment period or term. SAP is typically not run until after a payment period or term has been completed and often not run against every disbursement payment period or term. If SAP has never been run for an enrollment, then Anthology Student does not perform this check or hold disbursements for this criterion. A SAP status being reported as not calculated will not produce an exception or hold a disbursement. However, this criterion will evaluate against the Sap Status of a previous enrollment if there is a “Linked SAP Enroll” populated in the Progress accordion of the current enrollment. A linked SAP Enroll status will be utilized by Approve Disbursements to Pay for evaluation if a student meets SAP until SAP is run on the student's current enrollment.

    Student StatusesClosed Specifies that the student must have one of the student statuses before for a disbursement to meet the criteria.

    Use FA Credits for Non TIV AwardsClosed When the Advanced Feature flag “Enable FA Credits for Enrollment Status and Enrollment Intensity” is set to “Yes” and the program version is set to a Title IV-eligible program, the Disbursement Approval Criteria form displays the "Use FA Credits for Non TIV Awards" check box. When the check box is selected, Anthology Student will allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits. When the check box is not selected (default), the system will not allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits.  

    When the Advanced Feature Enable FA Credits for Enrollment Status and Enrollment IntensityClosed This flag displays the following columns in the Enrollment Based Term Summary section of the student's enrollment: FA Enrollment Status, FA Credits Per Term, and FA Credits (EI). This feature is activated on a version of Student 24.2.0 or higher and Regulatory US 24.4.0 or higher. is activated (on a version of Student 24.2.0 or higher and Regulatory US 24.4.0 or higher) (refer to Advanced Features) and the program version is set to a Title IV-eligible program, Anthology Student enables the Use FA Credits for Non TIV Awards check box on the Disbursement Approval Criteria (DAC) form with the following tooltip: “Enabling this check box will use FA Enrollment Intensity and FA Enrollment Status from the FA Aggregate Information tile.” The check box is cleared by default.

    • If you select the check box, Anthology Student will allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits from the Aggregate FA Term Information tile. The Approve Disbursements to Pay process will validate the DAC using the FA Enrollment Status and FA Enrollment Intensity values when evaluating non-Title IV awards.

      The Minimum Enrollment Status and Enroll status = packaged status fields in the DAC reference the FA Enrollment Status, and FA Enrollment Intensity for FA credits on Title IV funds.

    • If you do not select the check box, the system will not allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits.

    Verification StatusesClosed The verification statuses required for the student ISIR. The ISIR must have one of the statuses you select to meet the criteria.  

    You can select multiple ISIR Verification Statuses. The following codes are available when reporting Pell and Direct Loan payments to COD:

    • A - Accurate
    • B - Blank
    • C - Calculated
    • E - Selected, Qualified Exclusion
    • N - Not Selected
    • R - Reprocessed
    • S - Selected, Not Verified
    • T - Tolerance
    • V - Verified
    • W - Without Documentation

     

  5. Financial Aid Automated Disbursement Eligibility

    When the advanced feature flag Enable FA Credits for Enrollment Status and Enrollment IntensityClosed This flag displays the following columns in the Enrollment Based Term Summary section of the student's enrollment: FA Enrollment Status, FA Credits Per Term, and FA Credits (EI). This feature is activated on a version of Student 24.2.0 or higher and Regulatory US 24.4.0 or higher. is activated (on a version of Student 24.2.0 or higher and Regulatory US 24.4.0 or higher), and the program version is a Title IV-eligible program, Anthology Student will capture Financial Aid Credits and derive Financial Aid Enrollment Status and Financial Aid Enrollment Intensity. The aforementioned values can be reviewed under Student Profile > Financial Aid > Aggregate FA Term Information. Automated Disbursement Eligibility will evaluate student's enrollment status and enrollment intensity (2024-25 Pell Grant) based off the FA Credits. By default, all of this validation will be applied for Title IV fund sources. However, for non-title IV fund sources, the Disbursement Approval Criteria form has a new option Use FA Credits for Non TIV AwardsClosed When the Advanced Feature flag “Enable FA Credits for Enrollment Status and Enrollment Intensity” is set to “Yes” and the program version is set to a Title IV-eligible program, the Disbursement Approval Criteria form displays the "Use FA Credits for Non TIV Awards" check box. When the check box is selected, Anthology Student will allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits. When the check box is not selected (default), the system will not allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits. to evaluate Non-Title IV fund sources using FA Credits.

    If you select the check box, Anthology Student will allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits from the Aggregate FA Term Information tile. During the Approve Disbursements to Pay process, the DAC will be validated using the FA Enrollment Status and FA Enrollment Intensity values when evaluating non-Title IV awards. Note that the Min Enrollment Status Closed The minimum enrollment status a student must have to meet the criteria. The values are Less than half time, Half Time, 3/4 Time, and Full Time. and Enrollment Status = Packaged to Status Closed When selected, specifies that the current student status must match their packaged to status for the disbursement to meet the criteria. If the two statuses are not equal, the criterion is not met. Anthology Student compares the current student status to the value specified for Packaged To Status on their Academic Years tab (Select the Students tile > select the name in the Students list > expand Financial Aid > select the Awarding tile > Academic Years tab.) fields in the DAC reference the FA Enrollment Status and FA Enrollment Intensity for FA credits on Title IV funds.

    If you do not select the check box, the system will not allow a non-Title IV fund to use fields related to FA credits.

  6. Use the table to determine and complete the remaining areas on the page.

    Condition and Task Action to Take
    If you selected Missing Documents in the Document Evaluation list, add the documents in the Missing Documents list (By default, the list is grouped by module and document type.)

    1. In the Missing Documents list, select the Add button.

    2. In the dialog, select the values.

      DocumentClosed Select the document that you want to be required to meet the criteria.

      ModuleClosed The various categories that pertain to functional areas within an institution. For example, Academic Records, Financial Aid, and so on. If the list contains All, it includes all areas.

      TypeClosed Select Enrollment Specific if you want a document considered on file if no Enrollment ID is specified on the document or an Enrollment ID is specified and it matches the Enrollment ID on the disbursement being evaluated. Select Student Specific if you want a document considered on file if the Student ID matches the Student ID on the disbursement being evaluated. When documents are configured as student specific, Anthology Student ignores any enrollment associated with the award. For example, documents like Proof of Graduation only need to be collected by an institution one time, while other documents may be enrollment specific. The documents that Anthology Student evaluates when automatically approved disbursements to pay are specific to the enrollment of the student. This means that the document is associated with the enrollment for which the disbursement is scheduled.

    3. Select the OK button.

    If your institution has enabled and configured the feature for multiple disbursements, specify the criteria for the second disbursement under Additional Multiple Disbursement Criteria.

    Under Additional Multiple Disbursement Criteria, either:

    • Specify or change the criteria for the other disbursement

    • Select Copy Disbursement Criteria and make any changes for the other disbursement

  7. If you want to save and: 

    • Continue making changes, select the Save button

    • Continue to add another item to the list, select the Save & New button

    • Close, select the Save & Close button