928-523-4951
financial.aid@nau.eduSingle-semester financial aid
For graduating seniors at NAU
If you are a graduating senior and you only need one semester’s worth of classes to graduate, this can affect how your financial aid is applied and disbursed to you.
For example, your estimated Cost of Attendance (COA), which is used to determine how much aid you are eligible for, will be reduced to one semester worth of costs instead of two, which can then affect how much aid you are eligible for.
Notes and considerations
- If you are an undergraduate or postbaccalaureate student, you may not receive all of your fall/spring financial aid in the fall semester. If you are a fall-only graduate student, this doesn’t apply to you. You may only be considered a fall-only student after you apply for graduation with the university.
- If you were offered aid for the fall and spring semesters and do not end up attending in the fall semester (and are not enrolled for spring), your aid package may be canceled mid-fall. If you plan on attending the spring semester, make sure you’re enrolled and accept your aid for the spring semester in LOUIE.
Federal direct subsidized and unsubsidized loans
If you are an undergraduate or postbaccalaureate student receiving Federal Direct Loans, these loans will be prorated based on the number of credit hours you are enrolled. This basically means if you’re not taking an entire years’ worth of classes, you might not be eligible to receive your maximum annual loan limit.
The chart below is an example estimate showing how a reduction in the number of credit hours taken results in the reduction of the direct loan amount available to you. The numbers below are merely examples and might not reflect your exact amounts or situation.
| Enrolled number of credit hours | Dependent student | Dependent student additional loan for parent PLUS denial | Independent student |
| 12+ Credits | $3,750 | $2,500 | $6,250 |
| 9–11 Credits | $2,850 | $1,900 | $4,750 |
| 6–8 Credits | $1,875 | $1,250 | $3,125 |
| 1–5 Credits | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Get in touch
Reach out today
We’re here to help you better understand how your financial aid applies toward a single semester. The best way to figure out how your aid might be affected and plan for your final semester is to get in touch with us. We’ll walk you through the entire process.