Setup Considerations: Cost of Attendance

You can use this topic to help make decisions when planning your configuration and use of Cost of Attendance (COA). It explains:

Why to set it up.

How it fits into the rest of Workday.

Downstream impacts and cross-product interactions.

Security requirements and business process configurations.

Questions and limitations to consider before implementation.

Refer to detailed task instructions for full configuration details.

What It Is

COA is an estimate of a student’s educational expenses for 1 or more academic periods in the same financial aid award year. It represents the sum of the cost items assigned to a student.

Workday takes a student's COA into account when it estimates their financial aid award package for:

Need-based awards.

Merit-based awards that require COA.

Setting up and calculating cost of attendance includes these tasks:

Configure security domains.

Create student cost items.

Create cost item calculations.

Assign student cost items.

Assign cost of attendance.

Maintain cost of attendance reaction policies.

Business Benefits

Setting up COA enables you to easily configure Workday to assign financial aid cost items and amounts to students for an academic period ensuring accurate financial aid processing.

Use Cases

You can configure Workday to:

Calculate COA with multiple calendars.

Calculate COA with registered units instead of projected units.

Recalculate COA after a program change.

Questions to Consider

Question	Considerations
What should I set as the effective date when setting up student cost item assignments?	Set the effective date as the standard start date of the academic period in which the assignment should take effect. The assignment policy is only applied to academic periods that start after the effective date.
What happens to a student's initial COA if there is an update to an item such as their attendance plan or registration?	The student is flagged by a COA reaction during Student Nightly Job Orchestration triggering a reevaluation. If nightly orchestration is set to: Automatic processing, COA is automatically updated. Manual processing, the student appears on the Cost of Attendance Reaction Review report, and you can either: Resolve the reaction and recalculate COA from the report. Access the Edit Cost of Attendance task from the student profile and manually adjust the COA. To recalculate COA prior to nightly orchestration, use the Run Student Financial Aid Processes by Period report.
What if I need to add a cost for a cost item that's not assigned to the student's program of study?	You can edit the COA that Workday automatically calculates for a student or applicant using the Edit Cost of Attendance task.

Recommendations

For each academic period, configure Workday to assign COA to students automatically.

Create cost item assignment eligibility rules to further define which students are assigned the cost item. If the condition is left blank, the cost item is assigned to all students under the policy.

Requirements

Set up your academic structure, programs of study, and academic calendars.

Create student cost items for tuition, books, and other expenses you can associate with students to estimate their COA.

Specify which cost items apply to students based on their academic unit and level or program of study.

For users managing the assignment policy, provide security access to the academic unit and level or program of study to assign costs at that level.

Limitations

Workday only calculates COA for award years with projected or actual enrollment. Example: If Summer is not a typically enrolled period, it won’t have a projected COA. If the Actual Enrollment Usage Start Date (AEUSD) occurs and the student is enrolled, COA updates to account for actual enrollment.

Tenant Setup

No impact.

Security

Domain	Considerations
Manage: Cost of Attendance in the Financial Aid functional area.	Enables you to: Maintain and assign student COA. Maintain financial aid reaction policies and options. Resolve COA reactions.
Reports: Financial Aid Period Records in the Financial Aid functional area.	Enables you to report on financial aid period records.
Set Up: Cost of Attendance in the Financial Aid functional area.	Enables you to set up and maintain student cost items and COA reaction policies.

Business Processes

No impact.

Reporting

Report	Considerations
Academic Unit Policy View	Enables you to view the COA reaction policies for an institution, an academic unit or academic level, or a program of study.
Cost of Attendance Reaction Review	Enables you to view students that Workday flagged for manual review according to the COA reaction policy of their academic unit or program of study.
Find Student Cost Items	Enables you to view student cost items.
Run Student Financial Aid Processes by Period	Enables you to manually assign COA to students when Workday doesn't automatically process COA for a student or applicant.
Total Financial Assistance	Enables you to: Verify the results of the packaging process and confirm the information used. Example: The student's SAI, COA, and financial aid need. Make manual adjustments to a student's financial aid package. View a student's financial aid awards. View a student's private scholarships, sponsor contracts, or waivers, regardless of their impact on financial aid need.
View Cost of Attendance	Enables you to view COA details of the student or applicant.
View Cost of Attendance Job Schedule	Enables you to view the COA assignment configuration.
View Data Used by Cost of Attendance	Enables you to view greater detail of attributes used by the system to determine COA for each period.
View Student Cost of Attendance Assignments	Enables you to view cost item assignments.

Integrations

Web Services	Considerations
Get Cost of Attendance Reaction Policies Put Cost of Attendance Reaction Policy	Use to upload and retrieve data for all COA reaction policies.
Get Cost of Attendance Job Schedules Put Cost of Attendance Job Schedule	Use to upload and retrieve data for all COA job schedules.
Get Student Cost Assignments Put Student Cost Assignment	Use to upload and retrieve data for all student cost assignments.
Get Student Cost Items Put Student Cost Item	Use to upload and retrieve data for all student cost items.

Connections and Touchpoints

Workday offers a Touchpoints Kit with resources to help you understand configuration relationships in your tenant. Learn more about the Workday Touchpoints Kit on Workday Community.

Steps: Set Up and Calculate Cost of Attendance