You should use a Withdrawal CoC when a student withdraws from their course after you've confirmed their registration.

A withdrawal means the point when a student’s scheduled learning, teaching and assessment activities and other active and ongoing engagement end in agreement with you. It also means the student does not intend to return. They'll have no further obligation to pay fees to you.

This terminates their period of student finance eligibility. We'll recalculate their maintenance and tuition fee support.

If a student tells us that they intend to withdraw from a course, we'll suspend their maintenance payments. You must discuss the withdrawal with the student.

You must submit Withdrawal CoCs swiftly and accurately. This is to ensure our payments to the student and to you are correct and on time.

The service level for CoC processing is 20 working days in off-peak periods. During peak periods (from August to the end of November) it is 30 working days.

We can process Withdrawal CoCs through the automated service if they match the criteria for this. The processing time for an automated CoC is 48 hours. To maximise the likelihood of your CoCs being automatically processed, please follow the steps in this guide when you submit them.

You can create a CoC manually from the Create CoC page. For undergraduate students only, you can also create them in bulk by uploading an xml or csv file. This guide will tell you how to use the Create CoC page. If you'd like the technical specification with information on the bulk upload process, please email hep_services@slc.co.uk.

1. Go to the SIS Home page and select CoC Home.
   
   
2. This will open the CoC Home menu showing the CoC subareas you can see with your access level.
   
   
3. Select Create CoC.
   
   
4. Select Withdrawal from the Change of Circumstance category dropdown. 
   
   
5. Select the year you want to apply this CoC to from the Academic Year dropdown.
   
   
6. Select Next.
   
   
7. The system will ask you to enter the details of the student this CoC applies to. You can search for the SSN (student support number) to find the student’s details.
   
   
8. Once you've found the student, select Next. This will open the Change of Circumstance Details page where you can enter the specific details of the change.
   
   
9. Enter the Date of Last Attendance. This must be on or before the course end date. We use this to process the student’s funding entitlement.
   
   Attendance on a course means active and ongoing engagement with the activities and learning opportunities you offer. These include, but are not limited to, scheduled learning and teaching activities.
   
   If the student attended for the full first day of the applicable term, you should submit the last date of attendance as the second day of that term.
   
   
10. Enter the Date Student Left the Course. This should match the Date of Last Attendance (last date of engagement), which must be on or before the course end date.
    
    
11. Select a reason from the Reason for Withdrawal dropdown. There are different options for undergraduate and postgraduate Withdrawal COCs.
    
    You can find out more about undergraduate reason codes in the Withdrawal CoC reason codes chapter. The options are:
    
    
    • left during cooling-off period
    • never in attendance – confirmed in error
    • left during course
    • health
    • deceased

The postgraduate options are:

• • academic
  • deceased
  • disciplinary
  • health
  • other

13. Enter the Course Tuition Fee Liability. This field should match the Tuition Fee Charged to Student field to ensure automated processing.
    
    
14. The system will automatically fill in the Course Year field.
    
    
15. If you need to add additional information to this CoC, you must select the checkbox after the line saying, 'I need to include additional information so this CoC can be accurately processed. I understand that this will cause a delay as the CoC will need to be manually processed.'

16. When you've entered all the details for the CoC, select Next to continue.
    
    
17. This will take you to the Course Details page. For a Withdrawal CoC, the system will automatically fill in the course details. Select Next to move on.
    
    
18. You must now select a contact for the CoC. This will be a registered person at your university or college whom we can contact about this CoC. Use the radio buttons to select the contact, then select Next.
    
    
19. This will take you to the CoC Summary page. Review the CoC details and select Submit.

When a student withdraws, our system will limit the amount you can charge them to 25%, 50% or 100% of their full tuition fee. This amount depends on the effective date of the withdrawal.

In some cases you may want to charge the student less than the full amount they owe for their time in study. To do this, enter the value that you want to charge in the Tuition Fee Charged to Student field. Our system will then charge that exact amount.

You should also include a note with the CoC to say you're knowingly charging a lower fee. This will  ensure our processing teams can understand your request.

Example 1

A student has been marked in attendance for term 1. They've only attended 4 weeks of term 1 but now want to withdraw. Their full academic year tuition fee is £9,250.

You can receive 25% of the full year’s tuition fee for this student, but you only want to charge the student £1000 since they have not attended the whole term.

If you enter the full academic year tuition fee in the Tuition Fee Charged to Student and Course Tuition Fee Liability fields, the system will automatically charge the student 25% of this fee (£2,312.50). However, if you enter £1000 in these fields, the system will only charge the student £1000.

Example 2

A student has attended most of the academic year but withdraws before the end of the year. 

The student has attended some of term 3, so you can receive the full year's tuition fee for them. However, you only want to charge them 80% of this.  

You should enter £7400 (80% of the full fee of £9250) in the Tuition Fee Charged to Student and Course Tuition Fee Liability fields. Since the student has attended the 3 terms, our system will charge the full value in these fields.   

If you've confirmed a student’s registration in error and they've never been in attendance, you'll need to submit a Withdrawal CoC.

You should follow the steps in the Withdrawal CoC chapter to do this.

Use the day before the course start date as the Date of Last Attendance and the Date Student Left the Course.

Enter 0 in both the Tuition Fee Charged to Student and Course Tuition Fee Liability fields. This ensures that the student is not charged a fee.

Sometimes a student is suspended when the withdrawal decision is made. When this happens, you must not withdraw the student from the date their suspension began. The effective date of the withdrawal should be the date when you agreed on the student withdrawing from study.

Example

The student was suspended on 1 December. You submitted a Suspension CoC. The student continued to be suspended over the Christmas break. On 2 February they told you that they wanted to withdraw from their course.

You should use 2 February as the Date Student Left the Course and the Date of Last Attendance.

You confirmed the student's term 1 attendance before the suspension. We will therefore not claw back the 25% tuition fee payment for term 1. You should not claim funding for term 2 as the student was not in study for this period. 

You should not submit a Withdrawal CoC for undergraduate students who complete one academic year but do not return for the next. This is because undergraduate students must apply for each academic year they want to attend. If the student does not want to attend the next academic year, they will not apply for funding for that year.

Example

The student completes academic year 2020/21. They do not return for academic year 2021/22. The student's application will not roll over into the next academic year. Therefore, you do not need to submit a Withdrawal CoC for 2020/21. 

If the student does apply for the new academic year but does not return, you'll need to submit a D attendance code. This will let us know that they never registered. See Confirming ongoing attendance for more detail.

When a postgraduate student does not return for a new academic year, you should submit a Withdrawal CoC. This should be in the previous academic year, with the last day of the previous academic year as the effective date.

Example

The student was in attendance for the whole of academic year 2020/21. They do not return for academic year 2021/22. You should submit a Withdrawal CoC for 2020/21. The effective date will be 31 August 2021, as that is the last day of the academic year for this course.

You should not submit an N registration code for a non-returning postgraduate student, as this will cancel their application for every academic year.