Ability-to-Benefit Testing Policy

New legislation requires that ATB students placement test under strict guidelines in order to be eligible for financial aid. Students are considered ATB if they have not earned a high school diploma or GED and will not earn one before they begin courses at RACC.

• Students who are currently enrolled in high school or pursuing a GED and plan to complete their diploma before beginning courses at RACC are not considered subject to ATB legislation when they first placement test. If one of these students ends up not completing their diploma as expected, they must re-test under ATB conditions in order to remain eligible for financial aid.

To maintain compliance with Ability-to-Benefit legislation, we will test ATB students in the following manner:

1. Students qualifying for ATB testing will be referred to Debbie.
2. Debbie will schedule ATB testing as needed and will be our designated ATB proctor.
3. During the ATB test, all students will first take the Writing Sample, COMPASS Math, COMPASS Reading, and COMPASS Writing tests.
4. If students are not flagged as ESL, they will be scheduled for individual advising appointments after they finish testing.
• If students are flagged as possible ESL students, we will take their contact information. 
• If they are not ESL after their sample is scored, they will be scheduled for an individual advising appointment.
• If they are ESL after their sample is scored, they will be scheduled for a second day of testing with Debbie. During this test, they will take the COMPASS ESL Reading, COMPASS ESL Listening, and COMPASS ESL Grammar/Usage tests. Once they complete these tests, they will be scheduled for an individual advising appointment.

Notes
ATB test scores will be uploaded in Datatel so they be used in the financial aid calculations by the Financial Aid staff. Our responsibility to to make sure ATB students are tested appropriately-decisions about financial aid eligibility will not be made by Enrollment Services and questions about this should be referred to Financial Aid staff.

Once an ATB student has placement tested, we will advise them according to our standard advising/registration practices.

Quarterly I am required to submit a report to ACT that includes a list of all the students we tested under ATB conditions.