How to Fill Out and Submit the WGU Withdrawal Request Form: Refunds and Aid

To leave Western Governors University, you submit a WGU withdrawal request form through a self-service tool inside the student portal. Requests made any other way — calls to your mentor, emails to the registrar, paper forms — won’t be honored.¹ The submission itself takes only a few minutes. The financial side is where timing matters, so it’s worth understanding what happens to your tuition, your federal aid, and your transcript before you click submit.

Think About a Term Break Before You Withdraw

If the reason you’re leaving is temporary — a money crunch, a health issue, a family situation — a term break may fit your situation better than a full withdrawal. WGU allows students to take a break of one to three months between terms without going through the withdrawal and readmission cycle. Your enrollment status stays intact, and you avoid the paperwork and financial aid complications a withdrawal can trigger.

The limit is in the name: a term break happens between terms, not partway through one. If you need to stop immediately and can’t finish the current term, a break isn’t on the table. If you can hold out until the term ends, ask your program mentor about a break before you commit to withdrawing.

Submitting the Withdrawal Request in the Portal

The entire process runs through the student portal. Only the self-service submission counts.¹ The path:

Log in to the student portal and click Student Support.
Select Student Services from the drop-down menu.
Click the Student Services — Records tab.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and select the Withdrawal submission.
Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the request.

The prompts ask you to pick a reason for leaving and confirm your intent. You can’t set a future effective date; the request takes effect based on when you submit it.¹ After you submit, WGU faculty or staff may reach out to discuss the decision before the request is fully processed, especially if you’re mid-term. Expect the possibility of a call or email rather than a silent approval.

If the portal throws an error, contact the IT Service Desk instead of looking for a workaround. Contact details sit on the WGU Knowledge Center’s Contact WGU page.¹ Military students withdrawing due to mobilization orders should contact Military Support Services first to complete the mobilization process, then select Military as the withdrawal reason in the portal submission.

What Date Your Withdrawal Actually Takes Effect

Your effective withdrawal date matters more than the processing date, because it drives both your tuition refund and your federal aid calculation. For a student-initiated withdrawal, the effective date is generally the date you notified WGU of your intent — in practice, the date you submitted the portal request.¹

There’s a catch. If you stopped participating in coursework and submit the form weeks later, WGU can tie the effective date to your last date of academic activity within the enrolled term when that produces an earlier date. If you withdraw after your term has already ended, the effective date defaults to the last day of that prior enrolled term.¹ An earlier effective date means a smaller percentage of earned aid and potentially a larger balance owed, so don’t let inactivity pile up before you submit.

How Much Tuition You Get Back

WGU’s refund schedule has three tiers tied to when you withdraw:

Within three business days of your first term start date: full refund of all tuition and fees, minus the application fee.
After three business days but before the 60% point of your six-month term: prorated tuition refund based on how far into the term you are. Fees are not refunded or prorated in this window.
After the 60% point: no refund.

WGU’s average yearly undergraduate tuition runs about $8,300, which works out to roughly $4,150 per six-month term, and graduate tuition averages about $8,856 per year.² The 60% mark of a standard six-month term lands at roughly the 3.5-month point. That is the hard cutoff for any prorated refund.

Federal Financial Aid You May Have to Return

If you received federal aid — Pell Grants, Direct Loans, FSEOG — a separate calculation decides how much of it you actually earned. The requirement comes from federal regulation at 34 CFR 668.22 and applies to every school in the federal aid system.³

The math: divide the days you completed in the payment period by the total days in the period. That percentage is the portion of aid you earned. Withdraw before the 60% point and only that percentage is yours; the rest must be returned. Withdraw after 60% and you’re treated as having earned 100%, with no return required.³

The school returns its share of the unearned aid first. If a balance remains, you may be responsible for the rest. For grants, your repayment is capped at 50% of the unearned grant amount. For loans, you repay on the normal loan schedule after you leave school. This calculation runs independently of WGU’s tuition refund schedule, so you can end up owing money even after receiving a partial tuition refund.

Exit Counseling and Equipment Return

If you borrowed Direct Loans, federal law requires exit counseling when you leave school, withdraw, or drop below half-time enrollment.⁴ It applies even if you plan to re-enroll later — you complete it each time you leave. Parent PLUS Loan borrowers are exempt.

Exit counseling happens online at StudentAid.gov. The session walks through your balances, repayment options, and borrower rights and responsibilities. You’ll need a verified StudentAid.gov account, you must finish in one sitting (there’s no save-and-return), and the session times out after 15 minutes of inactivity.⁴ Plan on about 30 minutes and close other tabs before you start.

If WGU loaned you a laptop, webcam, or internet hotspot to support your coursework and proctored exams, you’ll need to send it back after withdrawing.⁵ Return instructions and shipping labels come through the student portal. Unreturned equipment can lead to a hold on your account that blocks transcript requests and readmission. If you’re not sure what you have out, contact WGU’s IT Service Desk before or shortly after you submit the withdrawal.

How the Withdrawal Shows Up on Your Transcript

WGU records one of three marks on your permanent academic record for each course you were enrolled in: passed, not passed, or withdrawn.⁶ Any course you were actively enrolled in at the time of withdrawal gets the withdrawn notation. Courses you already completed and passed stay on your transcript with their earned competency units; the withdrawal doesn’t erase previous progress.

WGU also evaluates Satisfactory Academic Progress at the end of each term and at the time of withdrawal.⁶ If you were already struggling with SAP before leaving, your standing at departure can affect financial aid eligibility if you come back later.

Coming Back Later

Leaving WGU doesn’t have to be the end of the story. If you decide to return, you go through readmission rather than filing a brand-new application. Contact the readmission team at readmission@wgu.edu or call 1-800-360-9120, extension 3140.⁷ Competency units you earned before withdrawing generally carry forward, so you won’t redo work you already passed. Readmission does involve a fresh review of your standing and may require updated documentation depending on how long you’ve been away and whether your program has changed.

1
Western Governors University Knowledge Center. Withdrawal from WGU
2
Western Governors University. Tuition and Financial Aid
3
eCFR. 34 CFR 668.22 – Treatment of Title IV Funds When a Student Withdraws
4
Federal Student Aid. Exit Counseling
5
Western Governors University. Computer Requirements
6
WGU Knowledge Center. Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)
7
Western Governors University. Readmission at WGU After Withdrawing