<p>I'm confused about payment and dues and fin aid and pretty much everything. Nobody told me anything about how to pay, when and where....can anyone explain the process to me? When should I start/have to start paying?Is payment for room and board different than paying for school fees/tuition...I'm really confused. Can anyone shed light on what I am supposed to do? There's something about August 15th....How do I pay? Do my parents have to do it through credit card transactions?</p>
<p>Cal bills students monthly, with that bill due on the 15th of the month. For incoming students, the August bill will be the first you will see. </p>
<p>There are a number of presentations and lots of information on this at
[Billing</a> and Payment Services for Students](<a href=“http://billing.berkeley.edu/StudentServices/StudentServicesIndex.htm]Billing”>http://billing.berkeley.edu/StudentServices/StudentServicesIndex.htm)</p>
<p>For August, all your ‘tuition’ fees for Fall semester will be billed. In addition, they will bill you for 1/10th of the room and board you selected. Room and board is always spread evenly through the school year. Tuition, on the other hand, is billed at the beginning of each semester but you have an option to select a payment plan that, for a fee, will bill you 1/5th of the tuition each month. You pick which you want when you pay that August bill. Some additional smaller fees arrive at seemingly random points during the school year and will show up on that month’s bill.</p>
<p>In Bearfacts, go to the CARS section and look. The format of the statement is confusing, since it shows your total due as the entire year’s room and board, plus Fall semester’s ‘tuition’ but nothing for Spring semester ‘tuition’. There is the amount due, and another amount due if you are picking the plan to pay off ‘tuition’ in five monthly portions. </p>
<p>You can pay lots of ways, check, credit card, or bank transfer directly from a parent’s bank account to Cal. Many use that method, in spite of the 50 cent charge per month for doing the transfer. You sign up by entering the account information from a check or from a savings account statement. Your parents can set up their own Cal account (they get to it through Bearfacts.berkeley.edu but click on payer instead of student). They then set up the bank transfer and they can log in each month and set up the payment transfer. Pretty easy.</p>
<p>How does the financial aid work? My CARS says I owe around $4k, but how do we apply the grants/scholarships/loans toward that money?</p>
<p>Once they’re accepted, they are automatically applied. You only have to manually pay whatever balance there is remaining.</p>
<p>What if I can’t afford the $4k? Do I defer the payments?</p>
<p>I think you only defer housing payments (but I’m not sure). Did you decline loans? Because if you accepted everything you shouldn’t have an outstanding CARs bill, financial aide makes it so all the loans + grants+ scholarship + Work Study covers all your expenses.</p>
<p>If you did decline loans… you probably shouldn’t have.</p>
<p>I didn’t decline anything. I accepted my package recently because we went through an extensive appeals process. We managed to drop our EFC from 15k to 4k.</p>
<p>that 4k should be covered by the parent PLUS loan.</p>
<p>Which we can defer, right?</p>
<p>defer the plus loan? not really. they’ll split it into ten payments, but you have to make that first payment.
or if you’re taking out the loan, you don’t have to worry about anything.</p>
<p>I’m confused. I have to pay my first loan by Aug. 15. On Bearfacts, it shows that I owe around 4k. What am I supposed to do?</p>
<p>The first ebill will mention a method of splitting the 4K in to five equal payments, with a small bill. You will have the choice of either paying the whole 4K (plus the room & board monthly charge), or of paying 1/5th of the 4K, a fee for the conveninence of the payment plan, plus the room & board monthly charge. </p>
<p>[Billing</a> and Payment Services for Students: Deferred Payment Plan](<a href=“http://billing.berkeley.edu/StudentServices/deferredPay.htm]Billing”>http://billing.berkeley.edu/StudentServices/deferredPay.htm) talks about this in more detail.</p>
<p>Oh I see, thanks.</p>
<p>do i need to resign the notes for loans again? :</p>
<p>According to my “quick statement” I owe around 11K…Is that alright? Everyone else seems to have only around 4k?</p>
<p>oos? Decline any loans? Too rich for grants?</p>