Glossary of Financial Aid Terms

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Acronyms

Renewable Scholarships: A scholarship that is awarded for more than one year. Usually the student must maintain certain academic standards to be eligible for subsequent years of the award. Some renewable scholarships will require the student to reapply for the scholarship each year; others will just require a report on the student's progress to a degree.

Repayment Schedule: The repayment schedule discloses the monthly payment, interest rate, total repayment obligation, payment due dates and the term of the loan.

Repayment Term: The term of a loan is the period during which the borrower is required to make payments on his or her loans. When the payments are made monthly, the term is usually given as a number of payments or years.

Residency: Based on the Admissions Office criteria for determining a student's status as a Montana resident, an out of state student, or a foreign student. This determination affects the type and amount of Financial Aid eligibility.

Retroactive: For Financial Aid, this refers to any aid payment due a student after a scheduled check disbursement date has passed. For example, the Pell Grant Award is normally disbursed in two scheduled payments (one shortly after the start of the semester and then again halfway through the semester). A student who has attended the fall semester and was eligible to receive a Pell Grant Award, but was not awarded until that December would receive the entire Pell Grant Award retroactively.