Graduation Clearance Form
Move past a clearance process that assumes you can just withhold a transcript until every last fee is paid. Confirm what federal loan exit counseling actually requires, check what your state and the Department of Education actually allow you to hold, and keep a record of exactly what was cleared and when.
A graduation clearance form that only checks for unpaid fees misses a federal requirement that has nothing to do with money owed to the school. Under 34 CFR 685.304, any student who borrowed a Direct Loan has to complete exit counseling shortly before they stop at least half-time study, covering expected monthly payments, repayment plan options, and what happens in default. If a student walks across the stage without it, the school has 30 days to deliver it electronically, but the obligation doesn't go away just because commencement has already happened.
The other assumption worth checking is whether you can actually hold a transcript over unpaid debt at all. A federal rule effective in 2024 requires institutions to provide a transcript for any payment period where a student received Title IV aid and either paid their institutional charges or had them covered under a payment agreement, and it bars withholding transcripts entirely when the debt exists because of the school's own error. At least 12 states, including California, New York, and Virginia, now separately restrict or ban transcript holds for unpaid debt, some with dollar thresholds as low as $500, "we don't release anything until the balance is paid" isn't automatically true anymore, and getting it wrong is a compliance problem, not just a customer service one.
Typeform's graduation clearance form tracks each requirement, academic sign-off, financial aid exit counseling completion, library and equipment returns, and any account balance, as its own item instead of one blanket checkbox, so a student and the registrar's office both know exactly what's outstanding and why. Every submitted clearance becomes a timestamped record of what was confirmed, by whom, and when, the file you want if a graduate disputes what they were told or a loan servicer or auditor asks whether exit counseling actually happened.
A graduation clearance form documents that a student has met every requirement to graduate: academic sign-off, financial aid exit counseling if they borrowed federal loans, return of any school property, and confirmation of their account status. It's what a registrar's office checks before releasing a diploma or an official transcript.
Only those who borrowed a Direct Loan, but for them, yes, it's federally required. Under 34 CFR 685.304, schools must provide exit counseling shortly before a borrower drops below half-time enrollment, including graduating, covering expected repayment amounts, plan options, and the consequences of default. If it doesn't happen before they leave, the school has 30 days to deliver it electronically instead.
Not automatically, and the rules have gotten stricter. A federal rule effective in 2024 requires providing a transcript for any period a student received Title IV aid and paid their charges or had them covered by a payment agreement, and bars withholding entirely when the debt is the school's own error. At least 12 states, including California, New York, and Virginia, separately restrict or ban transcript holds for unpaid debt, sometimes below a specific dollar threshold. Confirm your state's specific rule rather than assuming a blanket hold is fine.
Capture enough to document that every requirement was actually checked:
- Student name and ID
- Academic requirement sign-off from the relevant department
- Financial aid exit counseling completion, if applicable
- Return of school-issued property (library materials, equipment, keys)
- Outstanding balance, if any, and how it's being handled
- Signature and date from the authorizing office
Yes. Typeform's signature question lets each office sign off by typing, drawing, or uploading a signature, time-stamps it the moment they submit, and locks the response so it can't be changed afterward, generating a PDF you can keep on file. It's available on Typeform's Growth Flow, Growth Custom, and Enterprise plans.
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