Can my school do this??

[Connolly]

My school gave me a loans refund in August, and now I find out they have done a number of "adjustments" and want over $5000 back. I have used the money and do not have to give it back. This has never happened to me before and I know they must have done something wrong (I did not change my schedule or drop any classes after I originally registered); the adjustments were made because of a fellowship neither they nor I knew I was receiving, but was applied, and because my classes are online and not on campus.

 

Is there any way I can get them to not ask for money back at this point? Once they gave me the loans refund refund I thought it was mine to keep/use; are they allowed to come back months later and say they want $ back?

 

What can I do to find out (since they won't just tell me) what/where in the process the school might have messed up with the calculations/timing? It seems odd to me that they would cut the refund check so early and then months later say try to take so much back - it seems the process of sending out refunds should not occur until fellowships and status of classes are taken into account (like I said I never changed my schedule from the very start).

 

It is loan money I will have to pay back anyway but right now I am in school and simply do not have it to pay back. I am 5 years into a PhD so it's not like I can just walk away and without paying it they will not let me register and would not let me pick up a diploma.

 

Thanks!

 

 

[TakeruK]

I think this would really depend on each case, but probably yes. I have known several cases where due to an accounting error, students ended up being paid more than they were supposed to were eventually asked to return the money when the mistake was discovered. Even when the mistake is the employer's fault, that doesn't entitle the employee to get extra pay. Sometimes the mistake was found almost right away (so then we got a deduction on the next paycheque) while others the mistake was found months after my friend had completely finished their research assistant job and moved on to a different school/job entirely! All of these cases happened to me or my friends in Canada though, but I don't imagine US law would be so different here. 

 

I think this really sucks though, and I kind of know how you feel. Unfortunately, I think there isn't that much you can do unless you have a signed contract that says you are supposed to be paid this extra money. In all of the above cases, we did have signed contracts stipulating our research assistant pay, and the mistake was that the school accidentally paid us more than our contract said (but neither the school nor the students realised it at the time), so they were in the right to take it back. However, if the school did make a mistake and told you that you would be getting $X in support and/or pay, then they will have to honour their contract, I think. 

 

When this happened in the past, for larger sums of money (as in your case), the school did offer to give the student a period of time to pay back what was owed, without interest, though. So if you can't get them to allow you to keep the money, maybe you can at least have more time to come up with the money?

[Elli389]

Yes they can and this has happened to me!

 

What happened in my case is that the financial aid office figured out my aid before they were informed about other funding I was recieving. My student loans were paid out to me. The fa office was finally informed about my other funding, figured it into my total award, and reduced the amount of loans I was eligible for. I had to repay the difference between the loans paid out and the revised amount I was eligible for. However, this difference was the amount of my other funding, so I came out even.

 

At my uni there is a certain amount of funding students are eligible for which can be covered by various sources. For example, if they say the total cost of attendance is $20,000, they may say a student is eligible for $20,000 in loans. But if they find out that a student is getting a $5,000 fellowship, they reduce the loan eligibiliy to $15,000 to keep the total aid at $20K.

 

If this the case with your school, after the dust settled, you should have received the same total amount of aid even if it came from different sources. Can you log into your billing account to see details about charges and refunds to your account? If not, a trip to the fa office should clear up your questions.

 

Please forgive the lengthy repsonse...

[Loric]

I had this happen at a school I withdrew from. Of course, withdrawing i should have seen it coming. I didn't know for literally years that I owed the school any money until I went and tried to get my transcript to apply for other schools.

 

I ended up having to pay them. I am not happy about it. But i got my transcript and i never have to deal with that crummy school again (hopefully.)

 

See about a private loan from a bank or something that's not going to go through financial aid - cuz they aren't going to help you. Maybe even a credit card and taking a huge cash advance. I'm sure you next semester's finacial aid will let you balance things out and it wont all be gaining extortionate interest.

 

You might just have to work for a few months and make the money and pay it back and then go back.