college account summary, help?

<p>can anyone help me figure this out? taken from my schools website, this is my current account balance. the 3$ is after a fee waiver for classes (summer09, fall09), but what is the payment&deferred amount and "refund" all about?
i recieved a federal pell grant for spring 09, but i don't understand the numbers showing up on the refund amount. do i owe this?
any help on figuring this out would be great.</p>

<p>Account Summary
Balance Forward 0.00 </p>

<p>Current Charges 3.00 </p>

<p>Total Charges 3.00 </p>

<p>Student Payments 1.00 </p>

<p>Financial Aid Payments 2,365.00 </p>

<p>Financial Aid Remaining 0.00 </p>

<p>Sponsor Payments 0.00 </p>

<p>Payment Plans (Deferred Amounts) 0.00 </p>

<p>Total Payments & Deferred Amounts 2,366.00 </p>

<p>Refunds 2,365.00 </p>

<p>Total Amount Currently Due 2.00 </p>

<p>Amount Not Currently Due 0.00</p>

<p>You owe them $2.</p>

<p>I know about the 2$ for sure, but the refund amount is what’s bothering me since its around the amount of my financial aid and was thinking i’d have to pay that back.</p>

<p>The refund is usually the amount that is paid to you. On our bursars account the financial aid is credited to it, any direct charges (tuition etc) are charged to it. If the charges are higher than the credits we owe them money. If the credits are higher than the charges they owe us money. The money they owe us is called a ‘refund’ and is paid to the student (by check though there is a direct deposit option at my daughters school, not at my sons).</p>

<p>Difficult to tell not knowing your school and how they do their accounting and what your personal situation is. Your account details are a bit strange in that they don’t include any real charges, though I see you mention a fee waiver. My daughter has a tuition waiver scholarship but on her account they show a tuition charge then show a credit for the waiver. Your Pell amount seems to be the max for a semester for 2008-2009 (it is higher for 2009-2010) so this seems to be a Pell for spring or summer (I am assuming you did not have on the previous fall?). I wouldn’t expect spring info to be still on there (any spring refunds would generally have been done during or at the end of Spring semester). Did you get a refund check in the spring? Did you do 12 hour + of summer classes (to get the max Pell you would have had to do 12 hours)? Perhaps this is your summer Pell and your costs were covered by the waiver so you are getting a refund check? You should probably discuss this with the school. If you are getting a refund you need to find out how to get it. At my daughter’s school they mail the check. At my son’s he has to go in and get it.</p>

<p>thanks, this helped a lot. I go to a california community college if that helps any. ill make sure to go to my financial aid office or ask about this when paying my current balance. I did receive my $ in a check, but the 2365$ refund was confusing me because I wasn’t sure if it was a refund to my school, or to me. I was figuring if it was to my school, it’d show up on my amount currently due.</p>

<p>In our schools the ‘refund’ would be referring to the amount refunded to you. I would expect any amount you owe them to be shown in the amount currently due. But check with the bursars office to be sure. </p>

<p>One thing to be aware of when you get any refunds is that if you have any charges after you get the refund as you will then owe for them. At my daughter’s school they paid her refund out last fall before they processed all her charges (I think it was just her football tickets and one other small charge) so then she owed them money back the next month. My son’s school is much slower about issuing refund checks so he does not usually run into that, but it is awkward as he lives off campus and has rent and bills he needs the refund for.</p>