Daily Egyptian Politics Reporter

Students often stop attending a class without officially dropping it and receive a failing grade, but an SIUC policy enacted last semester can cause additional problems for students.

The new withdraw/fail grade, initiated by Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and provost John Jackson after a federal mandate, gives truant students a failing grade and withdraws them from the class.

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It is a way for the government to recoup student loans when students stops attending a class.

A WF not only can wreck a student’s grade-point average. It also can cause a temporary insurance ineligibility. If a student is covered by a parent’s insurance, the terms of coverage often require the student to be enrolled in college full-time.

If a student is taking the minimum 12 hours but receives a WF, then the student can lose coverage at least from the time that the grade is received until the student is registered for 12 hours in the next semester.

Jackson said the WF policy requires instructors to keep an attendance record of students, paying particular attention to the last date of contact the instructor has with the student.

If a student stops attending before 60 percent (10 weeks) of the semester is completed, the University requests that the instructor give a WF to that student.

The WF grade has opened a can of worms for the University that has Admissions and Records and Financial Aid scrambling to re-evaluate the status of students receiving such a grade.

Steve Foster, associate director of Admissions and Records, said his department is operating on a case-by-case basis for each student who receives a WF.

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The University must track whether or not a refund is due, whether or not a loan was used to pay tuition, and whether or not portions of the loan must be returned by the students.

For instance, if a student stops attending a class before the deadline to receive a refund (full or partial), then the University must give up the proper amount of money due.

In addition, if a student has taken a loan and receives a WF in a class, the student must repay a portion of the loan.

Foster said the frequency of the grade was high last semester.

Right now we’re working through the mechanics of dealing with each one, and it’s taking a lot of time, Foster said.

Both Jackson and Foster say that the federal mandate is costing SIUC an undetermined amount of extra time and money.

Jackson said that although differentiating between students who try and fail a class and those who simply stop attending is important in grade reports, the government’s plan may be causing a tangled bureaucratic mess.

If the University refused to record the WF grades, the government can refuse to send federal money to the school.

It costs time and money, but we don’t have any other option, he said. We can’t give away the tens of millions the feds send us each year.