Scholarship (Disbursement)
Table of Contents
Overview
(This is about the disbursement of scholarship funds. To create one for students to apply, see here instead.)
This article covers how to control which Student Fee (from enrolled Courses) should receive scholarships funds first, and when.
Note: If you wish to automatically disburse allocated funds to whichever Student Fee that comes first, see this instead: Scholarship (Fee Line).
Use case
A student's application for financial assistance (Funding) has been approved, and has been allocated with funds (Funding Allocation) that are ready to be disbursed to help pay the fees from enrolled Courses.
Rather than automatically disbursing the allocated funds to pay the Student Fees, the institution wants to have control over which Student Fee (from which Course) will receive the funds first, and when.
The institution could also plan to approve and disburse the Funding Allocation only after the Student Fee is locked after census date.
For example, the student enrolls to a Course. A Student Fee will be created (at the Program Enrollment), and under it will be a Fee Line of $300, for the enrolled Course.
The admin can control when to disburse the Funding Allocation to help pay the fees, by checking the 'Create Disbursements' checkbox on the Student Fee record.
This also allows admin to choose which Student Fee (from a Course) to disburse the funds to.
Checking it will then:
- Automatically create a Disbursement object, which links the Student Fee and the Funding Allocation (the funds allocated to the student).
- Automatically create a payment against the Student Fee, using the funds from the Funding Allocation.
If the amount in the Funding Allocation is sufficient, the Student Fee will be fully paid.
On the other hand, if the Funding Allocation is insufficient (i.e. maximum of $1,000 per Term) and there are four Student Fees (each $300), the first three Student Fees will be fully paid, while the last one will be partially paid ($100).
As of v3.14.2, if the student enrolls to additional Courses after Disbursement has been generated, the Disbursement payment amount will be updated accordingly, instead of creating new Disbursement payments.
If the student withdraws from all Courses, the Disbursement payment will be deleted, as it is not needed since there are no Fee Lines now.
In summary:
Once the student enrolls to Courses, Student Fees will be generated.
The Funding Allocation will be disbursed to create a payment against the Student Fee, only when the 'Create Disbursements' checkbox is checked on that Student Fee record, as the use case above describes.
The Funding Allocation will create one Payment for one Student Fee.
If there is sufficient Funding Allocation, or if the 'Max Amount per Term' is sufficient, then, the Payment will be equal to the Student Fee amount. Otherwise, the Payment will only be able to partially cover it.
If the Fee Method for the Program Enrollment is 'Course'
A 'Course' Fee Method means that for each Course that the student enrolls to, one Student Fee will be created (with one Fee Line under it).
For example, a student enrolls to four Courses for a Term. This automatically creates four Student Fee (and four Fee Line) records.
The admin will need to check the 'Create Disbursement' checkbox at each of the four Student Fee records, in order to make payments against each Student Fee.
If the Fee Method for the Program Enrollment is 'Term - Course'
A 'Term - Course' Fee Method means that one Student Fee will be created for all the Courses enrolled in that same Term.
For example, a student enrolls to four Courses for a Term. This automatically creates one Student Fee record, with four Fee Lines under it (since all are under the same Term).
The admin will need to check the 'Create Disbursement' checkbox at that one Student Fee record. This will automatically create a payment for that single Student Fee.
Create Disbursements at Term level
If there are multiple Student Fees from many students in a same Term, the admin can check the 'Create Disbursements' checkbox at that Term record instead.
This will automatically create payments against all the Student Fees from all the students in that same Term.
This will help to save time rather than checking 'Create Disbursements' at each Student Fee record.
Setup
The first step is to create a Funding record, to define the total amount of scholarship funds that are available for students to apply.
The Funding record also sets the maximum amount of funds each student will receive (if application is approved), and the maximum amount that can be allocated to the student in a single Term.
- For example, the institution could set a maximum of $4,000 to be allocated to each student, but only a maximum of $1,000 will be allocated for a single Term.
Set the Funding Type in the Funding record to be 'Scholarship', which uses the 'Disbursement' method.
In the custom metadata, ensure that the funding disbursement method for 'Scholarship' is Disbursement.
Also take note that by default, Scholarship (Disbursement) will be applied last to Student Fees (if other Funding types are applied to that same Student Fee).
If a student is approved for scholarship Funding, a Funding Allocation record is automatically created for that student. The funds will be allocated to the student according to the maximum amount per student and per Term, as defined in the Funding record above.
Note on Funding Allocation
The Funding Allocation record will be automatically linked/associated to the Program Enrollment record when:
- The Funding Allocation Status is "Approved" AND
- The Status of the associated Program Application is "Approved".
The amount will only be disbursed when the Student Fee of the associated Program Enrollment is generated. The total of amount disbursed is based on the following:
- Sum of all the Fee Line amount in the Student Fee. The Fee Line where "Skip Funding Allocation" is TRUE will be excluded from the calculation.
- "Amount Remaining" of the Funding Allocations:
- If the sum of all the Fee Line amount in the Student Fee exceeds the "Amount Remaining", the amount disbursed will be maxed out.
- If the sum of all the Fee Line amount in the Student Fee is less than the "Amount Remaining", the amount disbursed will be based on the sum stated and the excess of Amount. The remaining amount will be disbursed on the next Student Fee (only if the Funding Allocation End Date is still within the range).
- If the sum of all the Fee Line amount in the Student Fee exceeds the "Amount Remaining", the amount disbursed will be maxed out.
- Max Amount per Term (if used). This dictates the max amount that can be disbursed per Term out of the total Amount of the Funding Allocation.
Note regarding Funding Allocation Fee Line To Respect Applicable Fee Unit:
To enable this feature, make sure there are no current Student Fees with funding assignments, as re-assignments could be incorrect. You also need to enable "Use Detailed Funding Assignment" in the RIO Education Settings (recommended to do during term break or before a new term started).
With "Use Detailed Funding Assignment" enabled, a Funding Allocation will be allocated as much as possible to one Fee Line, and then move onto the next.
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