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Students exceeding credit hours granted allowance
By Josie Klemaier
jklemaie@mscd.edu

The Colorado Opportunity Fund caps at 145 credit hours for most students, but those needing more than that to graduate can now fill out a waiver request to receive further funding.

Since COF began in the fall of 2005, the program has provided a certain amount of funding per credit hour to go toward a student’s tuition.

The fund has always allowed all Colorado institutions to grant waivers to students who exceed the limit, but the waiver for Metro was not created until this year because participating students had not yet come close to using 145 credit hours, said Natalie Lutes, Metro’s interim vice president for Administration and Finance.

The form was created on Sept. 15 and lists the criteria and qualifications for the one-time, yearlong waiver. It states that most students with between 120 and 140 completed credit hours can obtain a baccalaureate degree.

However, according to the COF website, certain circumstances “related to a student’s health or physical ability,” a change in degree program requirements, or a financial hardship could keep students from completing a degree in less than 145 credit hours.

The waiver gives priority to students seeking job training or enrolled in Fast Track classes or post-secondary enrollment classes, in accordance with Colorado Commission of Higher Education guidelines.

Not eligible for the waiver are students with unsatisfactory academic progress, those wishing to complete double majors or a dual degree, or those participating in a last-grade-stands program, in which a student retakes a class to achieve a higher grade. The waiver states that no student will be considered until they have less than 25 remaining COF credit hours, and the process cannot be applied retroactively if the student has already exceeded the limit.

Forms must be turned in no later than the census date of the semester, which is the 12th working day of the fall and spring semesters and the eighth working day of the summer semester.

The COF waiver committee will review all approval requests once per semester and is required to make a final approval decision within 30 days. The committee is composed of staff from the offices of Administration and Finance, Academic Advising, Admissions, Financial Aid, the Registrar and Student Accounts, as well as one faculty member and two students representing traditional and nontraditional students.

The committee will review transcripts for changes of majors and course withdrawals, a Curriculum Advising Program-Planning report, and any other forms of documentation suggested by the waiver.

According to the waiver form, institutions in the state of Colorado are only allowed to approve a limited number of waivers. CCHE guidelines state Metro can waive five percent of full-term enrollment credit hours enrolled in by the student body in the previous year, according to Ellen Boswell, coordinator of institutional research at Metro.