(Photo courtesy of University of Missouri-St. Louis) “Students nationwide need to meet Satisfactory Academic Progress standards to be eligible for financial aid.”

Troy Lafond
Connector Editor

For many students of all ages around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic was significantly intrusive in the ability to complete school. Many students had to take withdrawals from a few classes, or for entire semesters either for personal or family reasons, or for medical reasons. To alleviate this stress, the university offered many classes as a pass/no credit basis. However, this same flexibility was not applied to students Satisfactory Academic Progress.

For those who are not aware, students need to keep Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) to remain eligible for financial aid. The requirements to maintain SAP is a minimum GPA of a 2.0, a course completion rate of 70% and taking 150% of the defined program length to graduate, according to the UMass Lowell website.

I am one of the many students who had a challenging 2020. I took two withdrawals and three no-credits in the spring of 2020, and a medical withdrawal from all 5 of my courses in the fall of 2020. Before that, I had only withdrawn from one course: Calculus 2 in my freshman year. I took the spring of 2021 off, and returned in the fall of 2021.

Through that time, I had attempted 75 credits and completed 46 of them. This is a 61% completion rate, clearly below the SAP limit. My GPA was solidly above 3 and I was on track to finish within the 150% program limit. This was already frustrating because without the medical withdrawals and the no-credits, I was above 70%.

My three “real” withdrawals should absolutely be counting against my SAP. Three withdrawals, in the Fall of 2021, would be an 86.67% completion rate. Counting the no credit courses as part of SAP bring this rate down to 74.67%. This means that, since the fall of 2021, my medical withdrawals have been held against me as a way to withhold financial aid.

My family is well-off enough for me to not be eligible for much financial aid, and I have taken out private loans to cover the rest. I have filed appeals that have been approved in past semesters, albeit at the last minute. This semester, I did not even bother.

Counting even the no-credits against me feels questionable. These were courses that were assured to not impede my academic progress if done poorly in due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet they did, in an unstated and unclear way until I reached this point.

However, to even attempt to withhold financial aid due to medical withdrawals is ableist. People who need to take medical withdrawals are often those who need the most help, but they are being deliberately put through extra hoops to gain access to the financial aid that other people do not need to take. We are required to fill out extra paperwork, meet with an SAP advisor and have our financial aid weaponized against us for the sake of keeping us on “proper” progress.

Not all of this is explicitly UMass Lowell’s fault. The ideal of SAP as an entirety is a part of the national Title IV requirements. However, as a university, UMass Lowell needs to do better to address those who needed to take medical withdrawals and no credits during the COVID-19 pandemic. We kept hearing that these are “exceptional times” that require change. However, at the end of the day, the changes that students were given to utilize are now being weaponized against us. There is no reason UMass Lowell cannot automatically grant anyone with a medical withdrawal or a high no credit rate during the COVID-19 pandemic an appeal. It is the least the disabled community, and or those who have faced one of the most challenging times throughout the pandemic, deserve from the school.