At a recent meeting, I was horrified to learn that the college sometimes has to go to students and ask for financial aid money back.

I mean, I know financial aid can be confusing for students and I know that students sometimes go into collections, which is what Dr. Patty Munsch, interim VP for Student Affairs, was addressing. One fact really stood out, though, as something that our classroom faculty members can help address:

• Each semester between 60 to 100 students owe financial aid back to SCCC because they received a grade of FN (failure due to nonattendance), but their last date in attendance for the class is within the state census roster period.

I reached out to Patty and Nancy Brewer, college director of financial aid, for more information. I share this here because I know that our members do not want to do anything that will negatively impact our students’ financial aid or ability to stay enrolled at SCCC.

How things go wrong

As we know, around the fourth week of each semester, classroom faculty have to submit an enrollment verification roster for all classes as of the state census roster date. We are given a date range, and if a student was in attendance during that date range, they can be marked as attending. For students not attending during that date range, we reach out to them to check on their status and intent to continue with the course.

If the student doesn’t reply in time, however, we sometimes are left in a predicament where we have to decide if there’s evidence to assume the student’s intent to stay in the course or if they have dropped the course but didn’t submit a course withdrawal form.

In the past, faculty have been encouraged to err on the side of leaving any “uncertain status” students on our rosters. We were told this is better because the college’s state aid is predicated upon how many enrolled students we have and because it’s easier than reinstating the students later, after they finally get back to us.

The above isn’t actually the problem, though. All of that is fine. The problem comes in when the student gets a grade of FN at semester’s end—and when the instructor fills in the “last attend date” column, the date is prior to the state census date.

The financial aid issue

When a student is marked as attending, the financial aid office uses that data to distribute financial aid to that student. The student may be receiving thousands of dollars in aid based on the belief that they are actively attending your class.

Upon that final grade of FN, however, with a withdrawal date prior to the census date, the college has to go to that student and ask for all or some of the money back.
For example, if a professor gives an FN with a last date of attendance of September 7, the student has earned approximately 7 days, 3% of their financial aid. Financial aid has already been given to the student, so the student will now owe a sizable balance to the college. As often happens, these students may sometimes end up in collections.

As you can imagine, this is not a good situation, yet it is impacting between 60 to 100 students each term.

How we faculty can help

One solution is for faculty to be extra diligent about our course records to help at least reduce—and ideally eliminate entirely—the number of students in this situation.

1. Be careful in taking and recording attendance from the first day of class right up to the state census date and enrollment verification roster deadline—and beyond.
   
   Remember too that you can always reinstate the student later if you feel that the non-attending status was not appropriate. Reinstatement is as simple as an email confirming that student’s attendance to your campus registrar office.
   
   
2. If you feel uncertain about a student’s status, please email and/or call them to confirm their intent to stay in the class before you submit the enrollment verification roster.
   
   You can send a single email to students across all of your classes with their addresses in the bcc: line (for privacy reasons) to save time.

I know this can be challenging when students don’t respond to our emails or phone calls in a timely fashion. I feel that frustration every academic year. But still, if we can help reduce how many students fall into this mess, that would mean a lot.

Taking attendance in online courses

It’s also important to note that in fully online courses, the July 2021 U.S. Department of Education regulations mandate that we take attendance based on student submission of assignments. If you have a student not submitting assignments each week (prorated for shorter terms), they cannot be marked as present.

Same goes for the online portions of a hybrid course in which students attend part of the time on campus and the rest of the time online; their attendance in the online portions has to be measured by assignment submission.

And, as we recommend in our sample JEDI syllabi, it is important to let students know that this is how attendance is measured. Feel free to check out, adopt or adapt our sample JEDI syllabi attendance language for your own syllabi.

Also, just as a bit of advice, in any course where you’re using Zoom (Sufflex or real-time online), you might consider taking attendance based on student responses to questions that you post in the chat, using the Zoom poll feature or even verbally (and tell the students to put their responses in the chat). These student responses can be saved as documentation, and it helps get around the issue of how to know the student is really present if they have their cameras off and are muted for most or all of the class period.

Retention is the ultimate goal

Finally, we need to remember that retention is the ultimate goal. College statistics show that we’re actually doing okay in terms of bringing students in to the college each September (and even in the spring and winter/summer terms), but that retention numbers are an area of concern.

Improving these retention numbers is literally a win-win-win-win proposition:

• Students win because they want and need to persist and make progress toward their academic goals, whether that’s a degree, a certificate or transfer.
  
  
• Faculty win because we want our sections to fill so they don’t get canceled for low enrollment. This is especially important for our upper-level and elective courses that provide students with such a rich and robust academic experience.
  
  
• As union members, of course we want as many sections to run as possible to keep as many of our members employed as possible. This also helps with our argument for more full-time classroom faculty lines. It’s hard to go to administration and fight for more full-time classroom lines when they can point to flagging retention data.
  
  
• The college as a whole wins because as an institution we’ve long prided ourselves on being the largest community college in the SUNY system. With nearly 1.5 million residents in Suffolk County and with growing distance ed offerings that can bring in students beyond Suffolk County, we want to not only draw people here for a quality education but also help ensure they actually make it to their desired goal.

Again, as a retention gesture, before you mark a student as not attending, please check in with them and determine if the student can return to successfully complete the course.

Also know that when you mark students as not being in attendance as of the state census date, they receive an email alerting them that they are no longer registered in the class. Those students are encouraged to reach out to you if they intend to continue the course.

Let’s work together to help ensure students don’t get that dreaded phone call at the end of the semester. It is a win all the way around!