Academic Programs Catalog

Undergraduate Education

Financial Aid for Undergraduates

Federal Aid and Satisfactory Academic Progress Toward the Bachelor's Degree

Federal aid regulations limit the amount of time federal financial aid recipients can work toward a bachelor's degree and require measured progress toward that degree.

  1. Students who have completed the requirements for an undergraduate degree are no longer eligible for federal, state, or institutional funds once the degree requirements have been met, regardless of whether the student seeks conferral of the degree.
  2. Students who have exceeded the maximum time frame to complete the degree as described below are no longer eligible for any federal, state, or institutional need-based funds or any federal loans funds.

Undergraduate students seeking their first bachelor's degree are allowed to earn 150% of the number of credits required for the degree. Most bachelor's degrees require 120 credits. In this case, students enrolling in a semester after earning their 180th credit are no longer considered to be making Satisfactory Academic Progress toward the degree.

Many Certificates in Agriculture Technology and Certificates in Veterinary Technology require 60 credits. For these programs, the 150% limit would be 90 credits.

Credits completed at all post-secondary institutions that are acceptable for transfer at Michigan State University are counted in the total, whether the credits apply to a student's current program or not and whether or not the student received aid for them.

Students are expected to successfully complete 67% of the credits taken during their time of attendance. Successful completion of these credits means the student receives passing grades for them, even if the grades do not meet degree requirements specific to their program. If a course is repeated, each instance of the course is counted as an attempt, but the student can only earn credit for the course once.