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SHEFA credit requirement for advanced degrees cut to 9
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Posted on Jun 10 2011
The Saipan Higher Education Financial Assistance has reduced the number of its credit requirements for graduates, post-graduate, and advanced degrees from 12 to just nine starting fall 2012 semester.
SHEFA administrator Henry Hofschneider said the board approved the credit reduction at its last meeting.
The issue about the full-time credit requirements for master’s students surfaced after the new SHEFA management and board refused to reimburse some scholars who only obtained nine full-time credits, instead of the 12 credits required.
Recently, 18 Framingham State University students appealed the denial of their financial applications, saying the previous board had agreed to the nine-credit requirement and that they are entitled for the reimbursement because their applications were initially approved by the previous board. The requested reimbursement is for the fall 2010 semester. They said the previous board promised to reimburse their expenses once the awards are available.
The board, however, did not take action on their appeal last Wednesday.
Board chair Jose Mafnas referred the matter to the appeals and awards committees, which will recommend action to the board. “I don’t know yet if they can be provided reimbursement or adjustment,” said Mafnas, who cited the program’s current cash-flow problem.
Hofschneider said that they have found no records in all board meeting minutes from 2008 to 2010 that the board had adopted to change the full-time credit requirements from 12 to nine credits.
“It was never amended,” said Hofschneider, adding that although it was discussed and approved in previous board meetings, the changes in the regulation was never published in the Commonwealth Register and therefore never became official.
“The April 27, 2009 published amendments did not effectively amend it. This finding is supported by the fact that section 21 provided for only part-time status and nothing that effectively changed the requirement that graduate and post-graduate students must carry 12 or more credits to meet full-time status,” explained the administrator.
