Financial Aid & Scholarship Office

Repeat Coursework and Financial Aid

The University Repeat Policy(opens in new window) allows a student to repeat courses for no more than a total of 28 units. In addition, students who have received a grade of “C-“ or lower for an individual course, may repeat the course if the major requires a grade higher than a “C”.

However, the University Repeat Policy does not apply to the student when determining if the repeat coursework is eligible for federal student aid.

Federal regulations stipulate that federal aid may only be awarded to an undergraduate student once for a previously passed course (one repetition per class). The Financial Aid and Scholarship Office is required to monitor students' repeat coursework to determine financial aid eligibility. Students are not eligible to receive federal or state aid for a previously passed course repeated more than one time.

What is a Passing Grade?

For federal and state student aid, any grade higher than an “F,” will be considered to have passed the course. NOTE: This is regardless of any university or major program policy requiring a higher grade or measure for academic purposes.

  • Passing grades are: “A”, “B”, “C”, “D” and “CR”
  • Not passing grades are: “NC”, “I”, “W”, “WU”, “F”

Repeat Policy Conditions

  • If a student passes a course once and repeats the course for a better grade, the student may not be paid for taking the course a 3rd time, even if the desired grade was not earned in the 2nd attempt.
  • If a student passes a course once and then repeats the course and fails the 2nd attempt, that failure counts as their final attempt and the student may be not paid for taking the course a 3rd time.
  • For Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP), each time a course is taken will count as an attempt when measuring progress toward a degree.
  • A student may be repeatedly paid for repeatedly failing the same course.