Policies Governing Federal Student Aid Offers and Disbursement

Apply for Admission to the University:
In order to be offered Federal Financial Aid, you must be admitted to South Dakota Mines as a regular, degree-seeking student. Non-degree seeking students are not eligible for Federal Student Aid.

Verification process must be complete:
If your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) results have been selected by the FAFSA processor for review in a process called verification, Federal Student Aid will not be offered until the verification process is considered complete. If your record was selected for verification, you will receive an e-mail notification from the Enrollment Services Center explaining the process and what you need to do to complete the verification.

Federal offers are subject to final funding:
Often financial aid offers are made prior to the notice of final federal allocations. For this reason all Federal Student Aid (Pell Grants, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants and Work-Study) is offered subject to confirmation of funding. The dollar amounts offered in Financial Aid Self-Service are estimates based on full-time enrollment.

Authorization to Apply Federal Student Aid to your South Dakota Mines account for all billed expenses:
All charges to your student account are the result of your attendance at South Dakota Mines. As a result, it is expected that your Federal Student Aid (other than Federal Work-Study) will be applied towards charges on your account that you have incurred (such as tuition, fees, housing, and meals (if contracting with the university). We must receive authorization from you in order to use your Federal Student Aid to satisfy charges for, but not limited to, bookstore charges, parking permits and fines, residence hall damage charges, fraternity charges, etc. Students can complete this process through Financial Aid Self-Service. This authorization does not restrict applying South Dakota Mines or outside scholarships and offers to your account.

Finalize aid:
In order to finalize the aid offered to you, you must complete the aid Accept/Decline process via Financial Aid Self-Service. Review the Requirements section of Financial Aid Self-Service for additional items to complete.

Additional awards:
You must report any other resources received during the school year that do not appear in your aid record in Financial Aid Self-Service (such as, but not limited to, Voc-Rehab, scholarships, loans, gifts, assistance received from a Cooperative Education or internship employer, etc.). Be sure to include additional assistance on the online Additional Information Form. Failure to do so may result in a partial or total cancellation of aid and repayment of any aid already disbursed. In the event you receive additional funding, your financial aid package will be reevaluated and adjustments made, if necessary. In such cases you will be notified that a revision is available to be reviewed in Financial Aid Self-Service.

Direct Loan Master Promissory Note (MPN):
If this will be your and/or your parent's first time borrowing a Direct Subsidized, Unsubsidized Loan or PLUS Loan, you will need to see information on completing an MPN.

Entrance Loan Counseling:
If you are a first time Direct Loan borrower, you must complete a Direct Loan Entrance Counseling session before your Direct Loan funds can be disbursed.

Disbursement of aid:
With the exception of Federal Work-Study, which is paid monthly, financial aid is credited to your account at the beginning of each semester, or after aid eligibility is determined, whichever is later.

If your financial aid exceeds your institutional costs, you will either receive a refund (also referred to as an overage) that will be mailed to you or disbursed to you by Direct Deposit to your designated bank account.

Prior to disbursement of any type of financial aid awarded for attendance at South Dakota Mines, it will be determined if you are degree-seeking at South Dakota Mines, meet the appropriate enrollment status for disbursement, completed Entrance Loan Counseling for student loans and that you are maintaining Satisfactory Academic Progress toward the completion of your degree at South Dakota Mines. If you meet the disbursement requirements, your financial aid will be released to be applied to your account.

Students (or parent PLUS borrowers) who wish to cancel all or a portion of their student loans (federal or private) must contact the Financial Aid Office to request loan cancellation.

Loan funds that arrive after the semester ends and you are no longer enrolled at South Dakota Mines cannot be released until it is determined if you meet the requirements for a late disbursement. We will also determine if you continued to meet the Satisfactory Academic Progress requirements. This same rule applies to other forms of financial aid that are paid retroactively during the award year.

Repeated coursework and Disbursement of Financial Aid:

Once a student has a passing grade for a course (D or higher), they are allowed to repeat the course one more time to improve their grade and still receive funding from the following aid programs.  If they receive a passing grade ("D" or higher) or fail the course, they are not allowed to receive funding from the below mentioned aid programs to take the course again.  The repeat requirements for the following programs are the same, but the impact may be different based on your enrollment status.

Federal Pell Grant and aid treated like Federal Student Aid for administration and disbursement purposes (SD Need Based Grant and South Dakota Education Access Foundation Grant) require full time attendance:   If the repeated course the student is taking makes them a full time student (12 or more credit hours), but they are enrolled in 9 eligible credit hours, they will receive a reduced disbursement of their Pell Grant based on eligible credit hours.  However, both the SD Need Based Grant and South Dakota Education Access Foundation Grant require full time attendance in eligible credit hours; if they only have 9 eligible credit hours, they will not receive a disbursement.  Whether or not the student previously received funding from these aid programs, the repeat requirements are still in effect.

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (SEOG), Federal Direct Loans (Subsidized, Unsubsidized, Grad PLUS and Parent PLUS):  If the repeated course they are taking makes them at lease a half time student (6 credit hours for Undergraduate students and 4.5 for graduate students), but they are enrolled in only 2 eligible credit hours, they will not receive a disbursement for these aid programs even if their remaining credit hours are normally eligible for disbursement.  Whether or not the student previously received funding from these aid programs, the repeat requirements are still in effect.

View information on Summer Financial Aid.