Auditing Classes

• Colleges and universities require you to receive permission from your academic adviser, the course professor and the registrar to audit classes. The exact procedures by institution. To audit classes, you must pay tuition out of pocket at the standard rate per credit hour. The registrar places a special mark on your transcript to indicate that you audited the course and received no credit.
  
  

Rules

• The U.S. Department of Education requires students to be enrolled in college on a full- or part-time basis earning credits toward a degree to maintain financial aid eligibility. Some scholarships, for example, require full-time enrollment, 12 academic credits or more, to maintain funding eligibility, while federal student loan and work study programs require at least part-time enrollment, between six and nine academic credits, for funding eligibility.
  
  

Penalties

• Per Department of Education guidelines, students must attempt to complete the required credit hours each semester to qualify for financial aid. If you must take two courses worth three academic credits each to get financial aid, for example, and you drop one of those courses to audit a course, your financial aid award could be revoked. Additionally, the Department of Education and your college require you to pay back your financial aid award, generally during the semester, or risk future financial aid eligibility.
  
  

Considerations

• You can avoid risking your financial aid status by auditing classes during the summer session or during semesters when you are not pursuing your degree requirements. You can also avoid having audit marks on your transcript by auditing courses at other colleges and universities. UCLA, for example, allows the public to audit classes with the instructor's and registrar's permission.