What is a refund check in college?

Question

Do all colleges give these? I'm not quite sure what a refund check is and why colleges give it to people.

Say that you already have a perfect aid package for your college, but you get a $1000 outside scholarship. Would you get that as a refund check? What about if you had like $8,000 in extra scholarships? Would you still get that as a refund check? Or would the organizations just take back their money because you didn't use it?

Answer 1

I had a full scholarship my junior and senior yr, but I had to pay tuition because the bill was due before my scholarship set in, because of that, I recieved a refund check.   So if you over pay ur tuition, you get one.   Best thing to do with it, is put it in savings for when you have to start paying back your loans  :)

Answer 2

Refund checks are what you have left over from school expenses.  Normally it is money you pay out of pocket for tuition before scholarships become effective or what is left over after any student loans.  You can have the remaining balance sent to you or back to the financial institution as payment on the loans if you have any.

Answer 3

Usually, a school factors in how much you're receiving in outside scholarship money when they offer you a package to avoid this issue. However, even if you're only receiving exactly what the estimated cost of attendance is, you'll still receive a refund back. This is meant to cover expenses not billed by the university, such as books or rent if you live off-campus. If you're looking at a lot of scholarship money from outside sources, the school will definitely take that into consideration when they offer you a package. However, in a perfect world, you'd still be getting a couple hundred back a semester for incidentals.

Answer 4

You can only borrow what your classes and books cost. It used to be you could borrow more but I  was told those rules changed by my financial aid officer. So your scholarship would credit your $1000 that you wouldnt borrow from sallie mae.