Withdrawing From College: Refund Schedule and R2T4

Tennessee State University's fee adjustment for a full Fall 2026 term drops to zero after 13 September 2026. The federal line that decides how much of your aid you keep falls weeks later. At the University of Central Arkansas, whose Fall 2026 term counts 108 days, that line is 23 October 2026.

Leave in the first week of October and both pages are correct at once. No tuition comes off the bill. On UCA's day count 1 October is day 43 of 108, so a shade under forty percent of the federal aid has been earned and the remaining sixty percent has to be returned. A ledger that was square in August reopens with a four-figure number on it.

Those are two different campuses, because no single page publishes both numbers side by side. That is most of the problem.

This page covers the 2026-27 award year. The regulation throughout is 34 CFR 668.22, read from the eCFR issue dated 31 August 2026 (current through 3 September 2026) and retrieved on 5 September 2026, along with the final rule published at 90 FR 470, whose amendments to this section begin at 90 FR 504 and took effect 1 July 2026. Every campus figure below is attributed to the school that publishes it and was read on the same date. The worked example is arithmetic, not a case file.

Two calculations, and only one of them is federal

The tuition adjustment belongs to your bursar and your state. It is a schedule your school wrote, it applies to institutional charges, and it can be generous or brutal. Georgia Tech prorates by the day: its published Fall 2026 refund calendar starts at 100 percent through 28 August 2026, reaches 50 percent on 20 October, and stops at 41 percent on 31 October, the last day to withdraw. Tennessee State steps it instead — 100 percent before classes begin, 75 percent through the fourteenth day, 25 percent from the fifteenth day through the first quarter of the term, and nothing after that. For a full Fall 2026 term those deadlines are 16 August, 30 August and 13 September 2026.

The Return of Title IV Funds calculation belongs to 668.22 and is identical on both campuses. It asks one question: what fraction of the payment period did you complete before you stopped? The University of North Texas puts the separation in a single sentence — the amount of federal aid earned "is based on the amount of time a student spent in academic attendance and the total aid received; it has no relationship to student's incurred institutional charges." The University of Dallas says the same thing from the other end: its "institutional tuition refund policy is separate from the federal R2T4 regulations to return unearned aid."

So there is no single withdrawal date that is safe. There are two, they belong to different offices, and at most schools the tuition one arrives first.

The count is in calendar days, and some days are not there

668.22(f)(1)(i) divides the total calendar days in the payment period into the calendar days you completed as of your withdrawal date. Not weeks. Not class meetings. Calendar days, weekends included — with one subtraction: 668.22(f)(2)(i) removes scheduled breaks of at least five consecutive days from both halves of the fraction.

UCA's chart shows what that does. Its Fall 2026 term runs 20 August to 10 December 2026, which is 113 days on a wall calendar, and the school counts 108. Five days are missing, and the break exclusion at (f)(2)(i) is the only provision that removes them; UCA does not publish which break on this page. Then the 60 percent line: 20 August through 23 October is 65 of those 108 days, or 60.2 percent, which is why the published chart tells students to attend through 23 October and to withdraw on or after 24 October to avoid repayment. Spring 2027 is a 105-day term with the same line on 18 March 2027.

Past that point the proration stops entirely. UCA states the federal rule in its own words: "A student who remains enrolled and attending beyond the 60% point earns all aid for the term." That is 668.22(e)(2)(ii), and it is the one place in this process where waiting is worth money.

Whose share becomes a bill, and whose becomes a loan payment

668.22(g)(1) makes your school return the lesser of the total unearned amount or its institutional charges multiplied by the unearned percentage. Whatever is left after that is yours under (h)(2). Run it on a 108-day term with 6,400 US dollars of institutional charges and 9,000 US dollars disbursed — 3,000 in Pell, 6,000 in Direct Loans — and a withdrawal on day 38:

• Completed 35.2 percent, so 3,168 US dollars is earned and 5,832 is unearned.
• The school's cap is 64.8 percent of 6,400, or 4,147 US dollars. That is less than 5,832, so the school returns 4,147.
• Your share is the remainder, 1,685 US dollars.
• Both are applied in the order at 668.22(i): unsubsidized Direct, then subsidized Direct, then PLUS, and only then Pell, Iraq and Afghanistan Service Grants, FSEOG and TEACH. With 6,000 in loans on the account, every dollar returned comes out of loans. The Pell is untouched.

Now look at the ledger. The school pulled 4,147 dollars it had already credited against your charges, so your balance owed to the school goes up by exactly that: the institution's share is your bill. Your own 1,685 is not a bill from anyone — 668.22(h)(3)(i) sends it to the loan, to be repaid in accordance with the terms of the loan, which means a servicer and a statement rather than a bursar hold.

Two debts, two creditors, one event. And the school's clock is short: 668.22(j)(1) requires it to return its share no later than 45 days after the date it determined you withdrew, which is why the balance often appears before anyone has explained it. The University of Cincinnati spells out both consequences on its own page: a balance "may be owed to UC even if the course withdrawals all occurred in the 100% tuition refund period," and if one is created, "a service block will prevent future registration until it is paid."

Grants get a fifty percent discount that loans never do

If the arithmetic does push your share onto a grant, two provisions cut it before anyone bills you. 668.22(h)(3)(ii)(A) says you are not required to return the portion of a grant overpayment equal to or less than 50 percent of the total grant assistance disbursed, or that could have been disbursed, for that period. Then (h)(3)(ii)(B) writes off any remainder of 50 dollars or less.

What survives is a grant overpayment, and it carries the sharpest deadline in the section. Your school must notify you within 30 days of determining you withdrew, per (h)(4)(ii). From the earlier of that notice or the date the notice was due, (h)(4)(i) gives you 45 days to repay in full, sign a repayment agreement with the school, or sign one with the Secretary. Miss all three and (h)(4)(v) makes you ineligible for Title IV funds the day after — every program, everywhere, including the school you transfer to. A school-level agreement has to let you keep your eligibility while you pay, and (h)(4)(iii)(B) caps it at two years. Eligibility comes back under (h)(4)(vi) once you and the Secretary reach an agreement, so this is recoverable, but not quietly and not quickly.

Sometimes the calculation owes you

The formula in (e)(1)(ii) applies your earned percentage to aid that was disbursed and that could have been disbursed. When the second number is larger, 668.22(a)(5) turns the difference into a post-withdrawal disbursement, and grants go out before loans under (a)(6)(i).

The notification rules are where this gets lost. Under (a)(6)(iii)(A) the school has 30 days from its determination to write to you, and the letter must warn that nothing will be disbursed if you do not respond within 14 days. Grant money not credited to your account has to reach you within 45 days under (a)(6)(ii)(B)(1); accepted loan money can take up to 180. If you never reply, (a)(6)(iii)(F) is unambiguous: no part of the loan disbursement may be made. A letter with a two-week fuse, arriving in the worst month of someone's year, is exactly the letter that gets left unopened.

The date they use is not the date you stopped going

If your school is required to take attendance under 668.22(b)(3), the withdrawal date is your last date of academic attendance from its records, and since 1 July 2026 (b)(2) requires that date to be documented within 14 days of it.

If your school is not required to take attendance, which is the ordinary case for degree-granting institutions, then 668.22(c)(1) walks a list. The date you began the school's withdrawal process. The date you otherwise gave official notification, in writing or orally, to an office the school has designated for it. And if you gave no notification at all, the midpoint of the payment period. That default is not a penalty; sometimes it is better than your real last day and sometimes far worse, and it is assigned rather than chosen.

Two escapes from the midpoint are worth knowing. Under (c)(1)(iv), if you did not notify anyone because of illness, accident, grievous personal loss or similar circumstances beyond your control, the school may use a date related to that circumstance. Under (c)(3) it may instead use your last documented attendance at an academically-related activity. But (l)(7)(ii) closes the obvious shortcut: a determination of academic attendance must be made by the institution, and a student's own certification of attendance is not acceptable unless institutional documentation supports it. A dated LMS submission, a graded quiz, a logged advising appointment — those are what move the date, not a recollection of the last lecture attended. Gather them before writing to anyone, because a rescinded withdrawal does not reset the clock either: under (c)(2)(i)(B), if you file a written statement that you are continuing and then stop again, your original notification date comes back.

Three ways not to be a withdrawal at all

668.22(a)(2)(ii) lists exemptions, and they are worth checking before you assume the calculation is coming.

You finished. Complete all graduation requirements for the program before the scheduled days run out and (a)(2)(ii)(A)(1) says you have not withdrawn.

Modules. In a program offered in modules — eight-week halves of a semester, most commonly — you have not withdrawn if you successfully complete one module, or a combination, containing 49 percent or more of the days in the payment period, or coursework at least equal to your school's half-time definition. There is also a written route: under (a)(2)(ii)(A)(3), confirming in writing at the moment you would have withdrawn that you will attend a later module in the same period, one that begins no later than 45 days after the module you left. Changing that date is allowed in writing beforehand, but if you simply do not show up, (a)(2)(ii)(C) restores the original withdrawal date as if you had never confirmed.

The full refund exemption. Added by the January 2025 rule, (a)(2)(ii)(A)(6) lets a school skip the calculation entirely if it treats you as never having begun attendance, returns all Title IV aid for the period, refunds all institutional charges, and writes off the resulting balance. This is the only exit in the section where nothing comes back at you. It is also optional — the Department confirmed in the preamble that "the withdrawal exemption in Sec. 668.22(a)(6) is optional" — so it exists only if your school adopted it, and adoption is a policy question, not a right. The Maryland Institute College of Art publishes its position: as of 3 February 2025 it applies that exemption "on a case-by-case basis." February 2025 is not a typo; the Secretary designated this provision for early implementation from that date. Ask whether your school took it up, and on what terms.

What 1 July 2026 changed

Five amendments from the January 2025 final rule took effect on 1 July 2026, which is to say at the start of this award year.

The one that moves money is 668.22(l)(9): a student in a program offered in modules is scheduled to complete the days in a module only when a student begins attendance in the module. A module you never began is out of the denominator. Commenters objected with a worked case the Department reprinted — a student attends 35 days of an eight-week, 56-day first module inside a 16-week term, 35 over 56 is 62.5 percent, past 60, and 100 percent of the term's aid is earned. The Department declined to change it, acknowledging that the change "will produce outcomes that may prove more beneficial to students than our current requirements." If you are in an eight-week-term program, the denominator your school used last year may not be the one it uses now. Ask which modules were counted.

The others: the 14-day documentation deadline at (b)(2) is now regulation rather than guidance; the full refund exemption is codified; (f)(1)(ii)(A) standardised the clock-hour percentage; and (d)(1)(vii) lets a confined or incarcerated student in a term-based prison education program return at a different point in the program. Everything else held. The 60 percent point, the 45-day return deadline, the 50 percent grant protection and the order of return are unchanged.

Where this lands on next year's aid

The tuition and the aid are only the invoice. A withdrawal produces attempted hours with no completed hours, which is the exact input that fails the pace test and consumes maximum timeframe — the mechanics, and the appeal that answers them, are in satisfactory academic progress and the appeal that restores aid. Dropping below half-time also starts the six-month grace period on your Direct Loans, defined at 34 CFR 685.102, which is why a leave you do not return from can quietly end a grace period you were counting on later; the disbursement side of that is in entrance counseling, the MPN, and when loan money arrives. Institutional and state scholarships sit outside 668.22 entirely and follow their own terms, so a balance settled in one place can reappear as a lost renewal in another. If the resulting bill is what you are trying to size, the components it is built from are in cost of attendance vs. what the bursar bills you.

If you are still choosing the date, do this subtraction first

Pull two pages before filing anything: your bursar's refund or fee adjustment schedule for this specific part of term, and your aid office's page giving the 60 percent date for your term. Then ask what each additional week actually buys.

For most students past the tuition cutoff, the answer is uncomfortable and useful. Georgia Tech's own note says half of it: after the add/drop period, "no prorated refunds are processed unless a student fully withdraws from the Institute for the semester." Once even that schedule has run down, staying costs nothing further in tuition while every additional calendar day raises the earned percentage, until the 60 percent point converts the whole balance to earned. Days, not credits. Attendance, not grades.

That is not an argument for sitting in courses you cannot pass; failing grades feed the pace calculation that ends aid next term, and an F you sat through is not free. It is an argument for knowing which of the two calendars you are actually racing, and for asking the aid office to run the numbers on two candidate dates before you pick one. They will. The worksheet is a federal form and the answer is arithmetic, and it is far cheaper to see it in advance than in a letter with a 45-day clock on it.