SAP Policy

St. Thomas Aquinas College Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) Overview

Satisfactory Academic Progress is a set of standards that measure a student’s progress through a college-level degree program. Federal regulations require that students receiving federal aid (Pell Grant, SEOG, Direct Loans & PLUS Loans, Federal Work Study) achieve satisfactory academic progress to ensure they are putting federal financial aid to good use. It also indicates whether you’re staying on track to attain a college degree.  

Understanding Satisfactory Academic Progress

SAP is divided into three major components:

1. Cumulative GPA – Students at St. Thomas Aquinas College must achieve a 1.8 for 0-30 credits earned and a 2.0 or higher for 30+ credits earned.
2. Pace — Students must successfully complete 67% of all credits attempted during the academic year and 67% of all credits attempted cumulatively during their undergraduate career, including accepted transfer credits. To determine if you have maintained a satisfactory pace, divide the number of credits successfully completed by the number of credits attempted to calculate your percentage. For example, 18 credits successfully completed divided by 24 credits attempted would be 18/24 = 0.75 or 75%. This exceeds the 67% minimum and meets the satisfactory pace requirement.
3. Maximum Timeframe — A student must consistently take and successfully complete courses that count toward his/her degree, and the degree must be earned within 150% of the published length of the program. The published length for an undergraduate degree at St. Thomas Aquinas College is 120 credits. Therefore students are only eligible to receive financial aid for up to 180 attempted credits, including accepted transfer credits.

Your federal aid & Satisfactory academic Progress

If you fail to meet Satisfactory Academic Progress for a given term, you may fall into one of the following standings:

WARNING STATUS:
Failure to meet the minimum satisfactory progress requirements will result in a status of federal financial aid warning for one semester. Notification will be sent to the student and all federal aid will remain for the next semester while in a warning status. This is a one-time warning period for any student not meeting quantitative or qualitative SAP measures for the first time. These students will be reviewed at the end of the following enrolled semester to determine if they meet the minimum requirements (quantitative, qualitative) and will either be placed in a suspended status or reinstated to satisfactory.

SUSPENDED STATUS:
Students in warning status who in the next term again do not meet SAP requirements will be placed on Federal Financial Aid Suspension and will be ineligible to receive federal financial aid.

Students on Financial Aid Suspension have 2 options to reinstate aid:

1. Complete courses without federal aid at St. Thomas Aquinas College until SAP requirements are met.
2. Complete an application and written appeal for reinstatement of eligibility if extenuating circumstances have contributed to their inability to meet the requirements for satisfactory academic progress. If approved students will be placed on an academic plan.

FINANCIAL AID APPEALED PROBATION STATUS:
This status is assigned to students whose written appeal and academic plan has been reviewed by the Appeal Committee and the decision was made to reinstate aid.  Students will continue to receive aid for as long as they continue to meet the terms of the academic plan. The academic plan will be reviewed at the end of each semester until the student fulfills the requirements of the plan.

If it is determined that mathematically the student cannot regain compliance with SAP requirements, the student will no longer be eligible for financial aid unless they later come back into standard.

Appeal procedures and full policy details of St. Thomas Aquinas College’s Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy can be found below.