Cash Advance & Refund Process

What is a refund check?

A refund check is a cash disbursement that is based on an actual credit. It is not an “advance” of anticipated financial aid credits to your account; rather, it is a refund of monies already disbursed to your billing account. Student Financial Services reviews all student accounts on a weekly basis and automatically issues refund checks, in the exact amount of the actual credits at the time of processing, to all eligible students.

How do I apply for a cash advance check?

You do NOT need to apply for a cash advance check.

Checks are automatically issued on a weekly basis for students whose credits (grants, loans, etc.) exceed the charges on their billing accounts (tuition, health fees, etc.) These checks are sent directly to local addresses, except during the month of September. In September, students will receive their checks in person after they have officially registered for classes.

What are the eligibility requirements?

To be eligible for a cash advance check, you must have a financial aid award. We can then notify the Student Receivables Office of your anticipated financial aid credits and use these credits to determine if you will have a projected surplus once all of your charges have been satisfied. You also cannot have a back balance from a prior academic year. All back balances must be paid in full before a cash advance check will be issued for a new academic year.

In addition, once we are ready for you to begin e-signing any loan promissory notes for awards offered to you in your financial aid award package (Direct, Perkins, Harvard Loans, etc.), you will be required to have e-signed all of your notes before a cash advance will be processed and released to you. Note: During the months of August and September, this requirement is waived since often the Student Loan Office is not ready for you to commence the loan signing process.

Finally, if you will be applying for supplemental education loan funding to cover an expected contribution and you wish us to include the amount of this funding in the determination of your cash advance check, all of the following must be true:

• You must have applied for any supplemental loan that you wish to be considered in the calculation of your cash advance check.
• You must have already received approval from the lender of the supplemental loan you wish to include in your cash advance check.
• You must have e-signed your loan promissory note.
• You must have already had any approved supplemental loan certified by Student Financial Services.

How can I calculate the amount of my cash advance check?

You do NOT NEED TO calculate the amount of your cash advance check; the calculation is done by our office. However, for personal planning purposes, calculating your cash advance check is an extremely valuable budgeting tool and we encourage you to undertake this exercise.

To calculate the amount of your cash advance check for either semester, subtract all of your charges for the year (tuition, health fees, dormitory and loan fees) from all of your financial aid credits (grants, loans, or outside scholarships). Do not include any payments at this time. Divide the resulting number by two, and then add in any payments you have made during the relevant semester. This calculation will result in either a positive or negative number. If you calculate a positive number, assuming you have accounted properly for any payments you have made, the result will be the amount of your cash advance check for that semester. If you calculate a negative number, you do not have enough financial aid credits to make you eligible for a cash advance check. Instead, this negative number is what you need to pay to your e-bill (less any payments you have already made).

Please note that your first and second semester cash advance checks could be different, depending on other credits and charges that you incur during the academic year.

You can download our Cash Advance Calculation Worksheet to help you calculate the amount of your personal cash advance check. This worksheet is intended to be used as a guide in determining a reasonably good estimate of the amount of your cash advance check. However, there are many variables that could potentially affect the final amount of your advance check. We cannot guarantee that the check you actually receive will always exactly match your calculation. While we have tried to take as many variables into account as possible when designing the worksheet, it will not be exact in every individual case. In addition to helping you calculate your own cash advance, we have prepared a few Sample Cash Advance Calculations to illustrate this calculation process.

How do I budget my cash advance check?

When you receive your cash advance check, you will need to budget this money for the semester. One semester, for financial aid purposes, is equal to four and one-half months (Sept. 2 - Jan. 15 = Sem. I and Jan 16 to May 14 = Sem. II ). To budget your cash advance check, you will first need to subtract any rent payments that need to be paid on a monthly basis from the check amount, unless you live in a dorm (since in most cases dormitory charges have already been subtracted). The remaining money should be divided by 4.5, giving you the amount you have to live on per month for the next 4.5 months. If you are eligible for a cash advance check, you will receive one each semester, usually on or near September 2 and January 15.

We have prepared some Sample Cash Advance Calculations that illustrate a variety of different scenarios and their respective budgeting implications.

What do I need to do to receive another cash advance check if I have applied for another loan or have been awarded any additional funding?

If you decide you need to borrow more funds than you originally expected and you have room in your student budget to borrow, then you may apply for an additional loan at any point during the academic year until April 1, 2009. Once the loan has been approved by the lender and certified by Student Financial Services, you will be eligible for another cash advance check, provided that the amount for which you have applied exceeds all of the outstanding term bill charges. If you are eligible, a check will be cut for you during the next weekly cash advance cycle.

Additionally, if you receive an increase in financial aid funding (grants, outside scholarships, Perkins or HLS loan funding) and this funding exceeds the outstanding charges on your bill, you will be eligible for another cash advance check, which will be cut for you during the next weekly check cycle.

Finally, if you have been approved by the Financial Aid Committee for a budget increase for borrowing purposes, you will also be eligible to receive another cash advance check once the new loan has been approved by the lender and certified by our office.

What is the cash advance inquiry process?

The cash advance inquiry process is a system that we have designed for you to be able to check the status of a pending cash advance check or to ask a question about the specifics of a cash advance check that you have recently received. The cash advance check process is quite involved and it requires the analysis of financial data from multiple sources. As a result, we need time to research your questions so that we can provide you with a clear, accurate answer. We have found that answering such complex questions on a walk-in basis is not in the best interest of students.

If you ever need assistance with your cash advance or simply need to know when you will be receiving one, we ask that you submit our online form: 

A staff member will receive your inquiry and respond to you within a maximum of 48 hours via email. Of course, we are always available by appointment if you would like to sit down with someone to discuss your situation.

What happens if I lose/misplace my check or never receive it in the mail?

If you lose your check or never receive it in the mail, you should contact our office immediately. If you never received it in the mail, you should verify your local address with both our office and the Registrar's Office. In both cases, we will issue a stop payment for that check, which can take as long as 14 days to clear. We will also reissue the check during the next weekly processing cycle; however, it is imperative that once we initiate the stop payment process, the original check is not cashed or deposited. Should you receive or find the original check, write “void” on it and return it to Student Financial Services as soon as possible. Until the original check has been stopped, you will be responsible for both the original check and the newly cut check.

A few key points to remember about cash advance checks.

• Please keep in mind that a cash advance check appears as a charge on your billing account. The charge will be repaid once the loans you received an advance on are actually disbursed to your online billing account.
• Any cash release from the University or federal funds MUST be used for education-related expenses only.
• You understand that you have 10 business days from the date of the check to contact Student Financial Services if you feel that there has been an error in our calculation of your check amount. If after 10 business days any errors are unreported, we will assume that you agree with the amount given to you and errors identified at a later date will be the responsibility of you, the student, to repay.