Schools will often establish their own policy on what's considered an average amount of hours that undergraduate students take (graduate level has different levels). For example, my school lists tuition and fees on students' award letters based on an average of 15 semester hours of tuition and fees per semester, even though 12 hours is considered full time. That's because the average amount of hours our students take to advance class level is 15 hours per semester. Your school may have a similar policy. However, the Department of Education does define a minimum amount of hours a student takes per term to be considered full time. The minimum depends on the student's program (bachelor's, certificate, etc.).

• For semester, trimester, or quarter hours, a student must be enrolled at least 12 semester or 12 quarter hours.
• 24 clock hours per week if the program is on clock hours.
• If courses don't follow any of the above, but instead are a series of courses or seminars, the minimum hours for full time enrollment is equal to 12 semester or quarter hours over a maximum of 18 weeks.
• Some programs award credit hours for courses completed, but the coursework does not follow semester, trimester, quarter, or clock hours. These courses usually fluctuate depending on when the student begins a revolving program. It's a little confusing, but minimum full time enrollment is calculated by taking the number of weeks of instruction in the term divided by the number of weeks of instruction in the academic year, multiplied by the number of credit hours in the academic year. Example:
• 14 weeks of instruction in the term
• 28 weeks of instruction in the academic year
• 32 credit hours in the academic year
• 14 divided by 28 X 32 = 16 minimum hours to be full time
• Correspondence coursework. This is really tricky because schools may or may not consider online coursework a correspondence course. For years, online coursework was considered correspondence coursework and nothing more than a half-time status could ever be considered. However, for 2008-09, the Department of Education began allowing schools to consider online courses as regular courses, but not all schools may have chosen to do this.
  Check with your school to determine how online courses are treated.

Nothing is easy! And schools vary as much as individual programs. It's always a good idea to check with your financial aid office to determine what's considered full time, if you are expecting financial aid as a full time student.

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