Nine hundred eighty-four students this semester had a 30 day financial aid hold placed on their student accounts. The hold was not placed on the accounts until one week prior to the disbursement to the student body.

Notification was then sent out to the students who would be affected, informing them that the funds they had been expecting would not be available for rent, books, food or any other miscellaneous living expenses. For CMU, this hold serves as a warning to certain students and helps protect the institution from federal regulations.

“If the feds want to hurt a school, they do it through the Financial Aid Department,” Curt Martin, Director of Financial Aid, said.

The federal government is cracking down on the abuse of financial aid, specifically targeting students who are not passing at least 67 percent of their classes attempted. In response, CMU implemented a new policy at the beginning of the fall semester increasing the percentage to 75 percent of classes attempted followed by a 30-day hold on the students’ financial aid.

The policy calls for a large spreadsheet to be generated that shows all students, over 3,000 in all, who have attended the school within the past three years. All students that have not completed at least 75 percent of those classes will be tracked through this new policy. There are no circumstances that will remove students from this list.

“There is no way to look at each individual that currently has a hold on their account to evaluate if we should remove the hold,” Martin said.

Although the federal government has its own standard, CMU decided to take a proactive measure and increase the standards at which it holds its students. Trouble starts when a student who attended CMU in the past comes back to school to complete a degree. Ifa student had attended one semester and, like many first-year colleagues, failed a majority of their classes, he or she is placed in this category and their fincancial aid is subsequently withheld.

“I am working on creating a policy that will help remove students that are doing well in the last semesters they have attended,” Martin said.

Martin declined to disclose the method by which the holds can be removed to avoid an influx of appeals. The criteria would most likely consist of the current academic progress as well as how far the student is from completing their degree.

“We need a system to evaluate students who are having troubles,” Martin said.

ldaniel@mavs.coloradomesa.edu