Hi im going to a cal state and received the Pell grant and Stafford loan both of which I accepted. I also had to pay for my tuition out of pocket because the deadline for classes was approaching and my verification was taking a long time. Finally I was awarded financial aid a couple days ago and completed steps for the loan yesterday. Im not sure how it will work though. I dont know whether ill get refunded and they’ll use my aid to cover tuition or they’ll just give me all the aid money which then Id have to turn into a refund for my parents. If they do the first option the remaining cash will be sent to me so now my parents have the refund the school has my tuition and i have whatever is left of the aid each semester. My question is is there a way to prioritize which aid they use to pay tuition first? If they use the grant Ill get all of the loan back but wont be able to use it on anything personal just education which Ive already paid for. But if they use all of the loans then the grants ill have a large chunk of money left over to use. I hope what Im asking makes sense and I would like some clarification of the process. Thank you
Usually a student’s aid refund gets deposited in the account that you specify, so you could deposit it in your account. Did your parents pay the bill so far, if so, why shouldn’t they get the refund to pay themselves back?
Any loan you take out has to be paid back after graduation or if you drop below half time, the unsub loan accrues interest while you are in school as well. So why would you want to take out the loan instead of the grant which doesn’t have to be paid back?
If you want to spend money on personal things you could get a part ime job.
If your bill is already paid and you get grant money … YOU will get the refund, not your parents. Always choose the grant over the loan. The money will work the same either way in terms of how it’s applied to your student account and refunded to you.
Will your grants + loans exceed your tuition? Exceed your COA? Did you actually need the whole loan if you are expecting there to be “large chunk” left over?
You can use stafford loan money for education-related expenses, not JUST tuition. That may be part of the confusion. But in general you don’t want to be taking out loans that you didn’t actually need.
For each of my kids’ schools, the student determines how they want any refunds returned to them. In the case of D1, the refund goes into my checking account because it was my money that paid. Her other options were to receive a check (which would have been made out to her) or on a school set up debit card. We didn’t choose that option because it has a fee for each use.
D2 received checks the first two years, but just set up for the ACH to go to her checking account. Receiving checks usually takes longer as they have to cut the check and mail it.
If you are asking what money will be returned to you, I suspect the school will back off the amount that you paid (cash), apply your grants and payments in the order they have established - usually anything required to be applied to tuition, school money, cal grant money, then loans, Pell, etc. They apply anything that must go to tuition first so that the maximum that can be given back to you (Pell, loans) is so that you’ll have it for books, expenses, travel, etc. It all becomes one big pot of money and the school won’t send amounts you have paid and any overages for the new amounts separately.
Yeah the loan and grant will exceed tuition. I needed the extra cash for various other things. What money would be returned was one of my questions whether it would be what i paid or or grants but my most important question was the order of the payments which twoinanddone helped clarify a bit. So by pot of money, it will all just be one check on not separate credits divided by loan and grant?
Did your parents take out Parent Plus loans?
What’s the total overpayment?
What are these various other things? Books, laptop, food, shampoo, or non-essentials?
Did you get a cal grant???
Grants and scholarships used for tuition, fees and books are not taxable. But if they pay for room and board and other nonqualified expenses they become taxable.