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Administrator Guide
Last Updated: 2025-12-12
Edit Cost of Attendance

Edit Cost of Attendance

Security:
Manage: Cost of Attendance
domain in the Financial Aid functional area.
You can edit the cost of attendance (COA) that Workday automatically calculates for a student or applicant. Example: Add a cost for a cost item that's not assigned to the student's program of study.
On the
Edit Cost of Attendance
task, Workday:
  • Displays recommendations for the
    Academic Period
    prompt by default. Workday uses machine learning to determine these recommendations based on your most recently and frequently used selections. You can optionally disable these recommendations. See Concept: Form Completion Assistant.
  • Enables data entry checks for the
    Amount
    prompt, to notify you when an entered value is outside of the typical range. You can optionally disable the data entry checks in the
    Data Entry Check Options
    section of the
    Edit Tenant Setup - Student
    task. See Reference: Edit Tenant Setup - Student.
  1. Edit COA for a student.
    • To edit COA for an academic period, access the
      Edit Cost of Attendance
      task. When you enter an amount of zero for the cost item, Workday automatically selects the
      Student Cost Lock
      check box.
    • To edit Pell COA, which is based on a full-time status for a full academic year:
      1. Access the
        Cost of Attendance
        report on the Financial Aid profile group of the student or applicant profile.
      2. Click
        View/Edit Pell COA
        for an award year.
      3. Click
        Edit Pell COA
        .
  2. Run the student or applicant through downstream processes, such as merit and need packaging, to incorporate the updated COA.
    Workday doesn't automatically pick up the student or applicant for downstream financial aid processing, so you must process them manually.
You can view the updated COA and Pell COA on the
Cost of Attendance
report. Access the report on the Financial Aid profile group of the student or applicant profile.