Simultaneous Enrollment in Undergraduate and Graduate Classes

ESU and the federal government use different rules and regulations to classify students as undergraduate or graduate.

If a graduate student enrolled in a graduate degree program takes six credit hours of undergraduate course work and only three credit hours of graduate course work, the student is considered an undergraduate student and is only eligible for the maximum amount of federal aid for undergraduate students.

There is a significant difference in the amount of federal loan aid available to an undergraduate student and a graduate student. Students who are classified as graduate students in fall and undergraduate students in spring may find that they are only eligible for a small fraction of the federal loan that they would be eligible for in spring if they were classified as graduate students.