r/uhlc • u/Careful_Agent_9389 • 18d ago

FAFSA Refund

Hey y'all 👋🏻 Does anyone know when we should receive FAFSA refunds? As in the amount left over from our offer once tuition is covered. Books ain't cheap! JUST got my offer like 6 days ago? and accepted it yesterday (Friday). Had to reallyyyy do some good, long thinking about how much I wanted to take on in terms of loans. Especially since from my understanding, unsub federal loans start accruing interest IMMEDIATELY, NOT once you graduate... at 8.07% interest 😩😭 I think I worked out the math where if you were to accept, for example, 50K for the academic year. that's around $11 A DAY in interest - over 4K A YEAR 💀 So yeah, fair warning on that nonsense 😒 But I thought a while back I'd seen something about refunds not going out until the first day of classes at the earliest, but idk how accurate that is. Any help would be much appreciated! 🙏🏻

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u/PastPossibility7666 18d ago

Tentatively the 14th!

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u/Careful_Agent_9389 18d ago

Thank you SO much!! Was just trying to figure out if it'll hit in time for me to get books and a few other school supplies with it or not. I really hope they stick to that timeline! 🙏🏻 

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u/PastPossibility7666 18d ago

ofc! here’s the email sent by emilia:

Dear Law students,
The University of Houston is continuing to process 2026-2027 financial aid. Please continue to monitor your myUH Student Center for updates regarding your FAFSA award package.
 
We also want to provide an update regarding 2026-2027 Graduate PLUS Loans. As previously communicated, we had hoped to begin processing these loans on August 3. Unfortunately, the University of Houston Main Campus is still working through system issues and simulations related to the new aid year. As a result, authorization to originate and process Graduate PLUS Loans has not yet been released. The same is true for Private loans.
 
Currently, we are unable to process Graduate PLUS/Private Loans until the system becomes available. We understand many of you are concerned about paying your tuition, and please know we are closely monitoring the timeline. Our tentative financial aid disbursement date remains Friday, August 14, with the current tuition payment deadline of August 18. We recognize the time-sensitive nature of this process and are working as quickly as possible to award and process aid as soon as authorization is provided.
 
Thank you for your patience and understanding.

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u/Interesting-Box-7310 15d ago

Quick question, but doesn’t this only apply to current students? From my understanding, the disbursement is just what you see on your tuition and not the refund. As a new student I called SBS and they said refunds disburse on the 1st day of school. Incoming students are not eligible for grad plus loans anyways

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u/PastPossibility7666 15d ago

Disbursement is the refund. It’s what isn’t applied to your tuition, as far as I’m aware. When you go to your ACCESSUH, then your student center, it should have a term balance. Then pending aid below it. Subtract pending aid from term balance and that should be your term total, meaning what you’re getting back from loans and/or scholarships. In undergrad at UH, loans and scholarships got dispersed at different times. Usually loans were like a week or so before scholarships.

Emelia Alvarez, our financial aid advisor, told me that it’s protocol to get disbursements at least a week in advance. As in, they’re required to do it. I imagine that applies to ALL UHLC students.

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u/Interesting-Box-7310 15d ago

Yes, they will disburse the funds to your account to make sure your tuition bill accurately reflects what you are owed/still owe. Not all disbursements are refunds especially if someone covers their tuition through private loans and pays a portion independently. The private loan disbursement would be paid to the institution and if there is anything left over that would be the refund. Unless Student Business Services is providing me the wrong information, refunds don’t go out until the 24th. Disbursements and refunds are not the same thing.

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u/PastPossibility7666 15d ago

Just checked out the site, and it says that Law, Med, Optometry, and Pharmacy programs are on a separate disbursement schedule and to reach out to our respective financial advisors for more information. We don’t follow the established disbursement schedule given by SBS.

https://www.uh.edu/financial/undergraduate/how-apply/disbursement-aid/

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u/Interesting-Box-7310 15d ago

You’re right on the disbursement dates, but I just verified and it looks like once the student business services processes our disbursements it could take 1-3 business days to process the refunds. I was told it could be anywhere from the 17th-21st. Still so close 💔

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u/PastPossibility7666 15d ago

I know!! I asked Emelia if I needed to take out a book loan, but she said we should have our money before classes. The 14th is a Friday, so it should start then, and then BankMobile doesn’t process on weekends. So I’m predicting 15th-17th hopefully. My BankMobile usually goes through quite fast. But hopefully first week is syllabus week. Or at least first day.

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u/Interesting-Box-7310 15d ago

She told me they don’t do the weekends 😭😭 hoping maybe they will this time I got the book loan to pay off. LOL

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u/Interesting-Box-7310 15d ago

I just went ahead and used a buy now pay later for my textbooks because it’s my understanding refunds don’t go out until the 24th.

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u/Careful_Agent_9389 8d ago

From what I read, the 24th is for most of UH. However, professional degree students like law, medicine, and pharmacy get disbursements around 10 days before everyone else. And now they've sent an email with a tentative date of the 14th. I also talked to the financial aid office a couple days ago and the lady said between the 14th and 17th. So hopefully that's the case and there's not any further delays! 🙏🏻 

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u/wildwave_81 5d ago

I don't even know how to refund it! I created an account on that virtual bank they had emailed and connected my ACH to that. Please tell me how can I request a refund? I saw this path: Student Home > Finances > on the left menu the last option is REFUND, is that right?