Thinking of Dropping a Course or Withdrawing?

For information on tuition fees, refunds and payment deadlines, please visit the Student Account's pages:

Refunds: https://www.trentu.ca/studentfinances/tuition-fees/drops-withdrawals-refunds

Deadlines: https://www.trentu.ca/studentfinances/tuition-fees/important-dates-deadlines

Financial Appeals: https://www.trentu.ca/studentfinances/tuition-fees/financial-appeals 

If you have a renewable scholarship and are planning to drop a course or withdraw, you should be aware of the impact it may have on your eligibility to renew or maintain your scholarship. There are two things to remember:

To receive your scholarship:

• To receive your scholarship in a term, you must be in a minimum of 2.0 credits as per the date indicated in the offer email (typically the Financial deadline).

   

To renew you scholarship:

• To qualify for renewal, students must achieve an average of 80% during the previous academic year and complete a total of 5.0 credits, or 3.0 credits for students with a reduced course load as an accommodation from SAS.  

• A maximum of 1.0 credit taken during the summer term directly following the Fall/Winter may be applied towards renewal. 

• If you received a bursary from the Financial Aid Office and later withdraw or drop courses, your account will be reviewed to determine if any adjustments are needed.

• In many cases, you may still be eligible to keep your bursary and request a refund if your Statement of Account shows a credit.

• If you withdraw before a bursary application is processed, you will not be awarded a bursary. 

Trent and OSAP have different definitions for full time studies. 

• For full time OSAP purposes, you must be registered in a minimum of 1.5 credits per term (1.0 if you are a student with a registered permanent, persistent or prolonged disability with OSAP)

   

If you drop below the minimum course load, your OSAP will be adjusted and your funding will be recalculated. You are only eligible for funding for the study period in which you are full time. 

Example:

You were registered full time for the fall and winter semester but drop to part time studies (less than 1.5 credits per term) in the fall semester. You are returning to full time studies in the winter. Your OSAP would look like this:

Image

In this example, you can see the student has two study periods:  

• The first being the short study period they were full time in the fall

• A second study period for when they returned to full time status in the winter term.  

The time period of Oct 24-Jan 7 is considered ineligible for funding.

OSAP and Overpayments:

An overpayment exists when you have been issued more grant and/or loan than OSAP has calculated you are entitled to. 

Students who withdraw or drop courses often have an overpayment. Overpayments can result in a restriction. Because of this, the Financial Aid Office is expected to return any funding available on your Trent Statement of Account back to OSAP via the NSLSC. 

E.g., If you drop a course and a receive a tuition refund for that course, you should be contacting our office. We will then update your OSAP to show your new course load and tuition costs. If you have an overpayment, we will send your tuition refund back to OSAP to help cover the overpayment. 

Image

Interest Free Status:

Repayment begins 6 months after you stop being a full time student.  If you drop to part time studies or withdraw, your 6 month period will begin. Please visit your NSLSC portal for information. 

Academic Progress:

Please view our OSAP Academic Probation and Restriction page to learn more information on this.  Students who drop courses or withdraw should be aware that they may be placed on an academic probation or academic restriction. This is not the same as your Trent academic standing. 

If you are unsure of your academic standing with OSAP, please contact our office. 

Students who are receiving Part Time OSAP funding for their course(s) are expected to complete all of the courses they received funding for at the beginning of their study period. 

If you withdraw or drop a course, you cannot receive Part Time OSAP again until you have self funded a part time semester. This means that you must complete a part time study semester without any OSAP funding before you can reapply for Part Time OSAP. There is no appeal for this process.

Students who are currently in their self-funded part time study period should still apply for Financial Aid bursaries and reach out to the Student Accounts office for payment plans and deadlines. 

If you change your course load or withdraw, it is your responsibility to report this to your home province/territory. 

Each funding program has its own requirements and you must be aware of the impacts of course drops/withdrawals.

If you need our office to report any changes or complete any forms, please email us.