Received financial award letter, but already paid tuition with credit cards. What will happen now?

After spring 2016, ending the semester with a 3.7, I got an email saying I was in financial suspension so financial aid would not be awarded for my summer/fall 2016 semester (I had dropped a 4 credit course, so my adviser said that was probably the reason since I fell behind the completion rate because apparently they are pretty sensitive on students dropping courses regardless of their grades). I paid a pair of summer classes by myself, did pretty well of course. I wasn’t gonna let money interfere with my education, so I grabbed my credit cards and not only paid for summer but also paid for fall like a week ago. Today I open up an email, and bam, I am eligible again, so I received a pell grant. With no doubt, I accepted it. But now what’s supposed to happen? Do I ask for a refund or what should I do now?

Check with your school and see when they give refunds for the term. Then use yours to pay off your credit card.

If you just charged it, you might go to the school and ask them to back off the credit card charge. That will save you any interest and a processing charge if your school charges one. Otherwise, just wait for the refund check from the school and pay the credit card bill with it.

Definitely ask the college to do a direct refund to the college to remove any interest charges.

Charging to a CC isn’t a good idea!

Make sure you provided your school with information for a bank account for direct deposit of FA refunds. That is usually faster than a check.

And you might want to familiarize yourself with your school’s SAP policy, GPA and completion of credits attempted usually play a role.

The summer courses probably increased your number of passed credits enough to once again qualify for federal aid.

Next time find out the consequences of dropping or withdrawing from a class before you do it.