In the moment and under the circumstances, withdrawing from your college or university may seem like a necessary, wise, or beneficial action. But be sure that you count the costs before you withdraw. Withdrawal can have hidden hazards. Let the Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team help you weigh the risks and consequences before you withdraw and suffer surprising consequences. Call 888.535.3686 now or use our contact form to tell us about your case.
Reasons for College or University Withdrawal
You don't have to have a reason to withdraw from your college or university. You presumably enrolled for good reasons, but those reasons may have changed. You just might not find yourself in the right place at the right time any longer. A college or university enrollment isn't a jail or prison term. You may generally leave whenever you wish, with or without reason. However, college and university students who withdraw often have reasons for doing so. And your reasons may be important to you, to your supportive family members and friends, to your school, and to your future. If you are seriously considering withdrawing, then know your reasons. Common reasons include:
- realizing you have chosen the wrong school or program or realizing you have available to you a better school or program;
- facing school misconduct charges or a failure to satisfactorily progress in your academics, threatening your dismissal;
- changes in your health or the health of immediate family members or others close to you;
- changes in your family situation such as marriage, separation, divorce, pregnancy, child care, or other dependent care;
- changes in your finances such as loss of gift income, loans, scholarships, grants, or awards, or bankruptcy;
- changes in your employment such as promotion, demotion, transfer to a new location, loss of employment, or loss of tuition remission support; and
- changes in your military status, such as active-duty call-up or changes in your immigration status or other legal status.
Why Schools Regulate Withdrawal
Be aware that your college or university, and the next college or university you may wish to attend, may well take an interest in the terms and conditions under which you withdraw. Colleges and universities take an interest in student withdrawals because they have an interest in student admission, enrollment, retention, and graduation. A student's withdrawal can affect a school's enrollment, income, attrition rate, retention rate, graduation rate, and other measures on which a school's reputation, relationships, and accreditation depend. Withdrawal can also affect your grades in any incomplete courses, student loans, other financial aid, and tuition refunds. Depending on your school record and the reasons for your withdrawal, your school may well prefer that you remain in school. But in any case, when you withdraw, your school will need to modify its records to reflect your new official status with the school as withdrawn.
Withdrawal Options
You may be uncertain as to how long you intend to be out of school and whether you will ever return. Or you may be sure of both. You may need only one term off, or you may need two or more terms off while doubting your return. Fortunately, your college or university may offer you helpful withdrawal options. Our Student Defense Team can help you confirm your withdrawal options, depending on your school's withdrawal policies. Your college or university may permit a term withdrawal or leave of absence of one term or more without affecting your ability to return or affecting your student loans and other financial opportunities and obligations. New York University's withdrawal policy is an example providing several withdrawal options. Don't assume that withdrawal involves a one-size-fits-all single option. With our help, you may be able to provide some flexibility in the terms of your withdrawal if your situation and intentions remain uncertain.
Withdrawal Benefits
Sometimes, withdrawal is a good move, even a very good move. Withdrawal can relieve you of the immediate demands, stresses, and pressures of college or university studies. You may be able to use that new time, attention, and energy to address whatever issue or issues caused you to withdraw, whether medical, family-related, or financial. You may use your new freedom from academic studies to take a new job, start a new business or relationship, or make an important or desirable cross-country move. Withdrawal from a college or university can also enable you to enroll in another program more suited to your abilities, goals, and interests. Withdrawing students can usually see the potential benefits of withdrawal.
Withdrawal Risks
Sometimes, though, withdrawal is a bad move that can hurt you. Be clear on the risks of withdrawal. Withdrawal is especially hazardous when your standing with the college or university is already at risk, such as when you face behavioral or academic misconduct charges or have received the school's notice of probation or suspension for failure to satisfactorily academically progress. Do not withdraw while facing such charges without retaining our Student Defense Team to ensure that you understand the risks. We may be able to negotiate or advocate your relief from those charges so that you do not have to withdraw or so that your withdrawal does not leave you in poor academic standing. Consider the following associated withdrawal risks.
Resuming Studies as a Risk After Withdrawal
The terms and conditions under which you withdraw from your college or university may affect your ability to resume your studies at the same college or university. For instance, to comply with federal student-loan regulations, schools have satisfactory academic progress (SAP) policies that generally require students to complete their degree program within a specified time, often 150% of the program's usual length, to qualify for student loans. The University of Texas at Austin, for example, has such an SAP policy with a maximum timeframe. Under your school's SAP policy, you may not be able to just take off the time you need, returning to school one, two, or several terms later to complete your program. Likewise, if you withdraw with disciplinary charges hanging over your head, the school may decide to enter your default or otherwise bar you from resuming studies. Be careful that your withdrawal doesn't keep you from returning to finish your degree, if you should decide to do so.
Student Transfer as a Question After Withdrawal
Your withdrawal from your current college or university could also keep you from transferring your earned credits to another college or university later to complete a similar degree program. Colleges and universities may determine not to grant transfer admission to a student who left a similar program while not in good standing, such as with disciplinary charges pending or unresolved SAP issues. You may not, in other words, be able to run from your current school problems. Those problems may well follow you to other schools. Even if you don't presently intend to resume studies at another college or university, you may find it better to address pending issues now, if possible, to keep doors open for your future. Let us help you do so.
Student Loans and Other Financial Considerations to Withdrawal
As briefly indicated above, withdrawing from your college or university will also affect your student loans, grants, and awards. Withdrawal policies like the one at the University of Missouri advise careful thought and thorough consultation regarding student financial loans and repayment obligations. Your withdrawal may trigger a tuition refund and loan credit for courses for which you have registered but not yet begun. That's the good news. However, withdrawal may also trigger loan repayment schedules. It may also deny you access to loans, awards, gifts, grants, or scholarship proceeds that you intend to use for living expenses. You should be looking carefully at your new financial picture in all respects before you decide firmly and finally to withdraw.
Withdrawal's Effect on Immigration or Other Legal Status
Your withdrawal may also affect your immigration status or other legal status. If you are lawfully in the country on a student visa, that visa may require your continued enrollment. If you withdraw, you may have to return to your country of origin or risk being in the country without lawful status. You may also be under a criminal or civil court order requiring that you remain enrolled in a college or university program as a condition of probation, child-support abatement, spousal-support abatement, or similar right or interest. Beware how a change in your enrollment status may affect your legal interests.
Other Student Interests Withdrawal May Affect
College or university life can be very good in the corollary benefits it provides beyond the classroom or clinical education. Your college or university studies may have given you access to dormitory or other housing at reduced cost, health insurance and medical care, free or low-cost campus transportation, dining halls, recreational facilities, and other benefits. Withdrawing from your college or university will likely mean losing all those benefits. You may have to move, find new health insurance and medical care, find new transportation, and provide for your own food and recreation, all current benefits of your enrollment.
Better Fight than Flight
If the above discussion hasn't made it sufficiently clear already, you generally shouldn't be withdrawing if your intention is to run to another school from your current disciplinary, academic misconduct, or failure to progress charges. If your next program bears any relationship to your current program, including drawing on any of your current academic credentials and earned credits, then your next school will likely require transcripts from your current school, including a record of your current standing. If that standing is not good, then your next school will likely require that you address and resolve pending charges. Flight is not generally a good option. Fighting the charges may be your best option. Resolve your current situation now to the best possible outcome rather than have your current situation haunt you later, disabling your educational and vocational opportunities into the foreseeable future.
The Role of a Student Defense Attorney
If your reason for withdrawal has anything to do with pending or anticipated behavioral, academic, or failure to progress charges, then our Student Defense Team may be able to help you salvage your situation at your current school or help you resolve those charges favorably so that you can transfer to or restart at a new school. We can appear on your behalf, notifying school disciplinary officials that we represent you in the matter and encouraging them to contact and negotiate with us toward a favorable voluntary resolution. If necessary, we can help you gather and present exonerating and mitigating evidence, present win-win resolutions, and invoke formal hearing procedures to advocate effectively on your behalf. If you have already lost all hearings, then we may be able to take a successful appeal on your behalf. We may have many other things we can do to help you avoid withdrawal or withdraw on terms that enable you to preserve your educational future.
Premier Defense Team Available
The Lento Law Firm's Student Defense Team is available nationwide to help students negotiate and navigate the terms of their school withdrawal. Don't cut and run. Don't make a hasty decision, thinking that your current issues will disappear if you leave them behind by withdrawing. Your withdrawal may leave you at a disadvantage now or in the future when you could have avoided withdrawal or withdrawn on more favorable terms, keeping your future options open. Let us help you evaluate and negotiate withdrawal if withdrawal is your best option. We have successfully helped hundreds of students across the country obtain successful outcomes in disputes with their college or university over withdrawal and other issues. Call 888.535.3686 now or use our contact form to tell us about your withdrawal issues. Get the skilled and experienced help you need.
