Student Refunds

Refunds are typically processed each Tuesday and Thursday for students with a financial aid credit balance or for any reason that accounts are overpaid and credits should be refunded to a student.  Credit balances resulting from financial aid exceeding institutional charges will be automatically refunded. If there is a credit on a student's account that is not related to financial aid, the student should call the Student Accounts office to request that the credit be refunded. Refunds for an upcoming term cannot be issued more than 10 days prior to the first day of class. The Office of Student Accounts makes every effort to begin refunds as close to that requirement as possible.

Credit balances on student accounts for the current and prior terms are refunded to the student with two exceptions (exceptions - see parent plus loan refunds & withdrawals).  This means that if you have overpaid in a prior or current term, and simply left the balance to pay future charges, you may receive a refund.  At our discretion, there may be some credit balances that require review prior to releasing the refund.  If there is a credit balance on your account for a current or prior term and you wish for those credits to be refunded, please contact our office.  As always, the Office of Student Financial Aid will review all refunds for students who have received aid and reserve the right to hold the credit balances from being refunded until any issues are resolved.  If you have already contacted us to request that your payment is held for a future term, we will honor existing requests, but moving forward, we will not be able to honor these requests.  As a reminder, we will only be refunding current and prior terms which means payments made for future terms that posted in a future term will not be refunded.  Online payments post to a term based on the term the student/parent select prior to selecting the “pay now” button.  Please see the "Refunds (Application of Payments)" tab to see how your payment is applied to an account and could impact how a credit balance is refunded.

Direct Deposit

Action Needed by Students to set up Direct Deposit:

  • Parent Plus refunds to parents will remain in the form of a check; however, we hope to have a direct deposit option in the future.

  • Students who have not yet set up direct deposit in the Billing and Payment Center by Touchnet should do so atleast two weeks before the beginning of a term.  See Refund Account Setup Tutorial for help.

  • Students need to add any authorized users (i.e. parents) in the Billing and Payment Center who need to receive notifications and view or pay balances owed in the future.

Alternative to Direct Deposit

If there is no direct deposit authorization on your account, refund checks will be mailed to you. To ensure we have your correct address, please set up a REFUND address on your account. If there is no REFUND address, checks will go to your ENROLLED STUDENT MAILING address. Addresses can be viewed or changed on the Personal Information tab of your Appalnet.

Lost Refund Check Replacement

We recommend taking advantage of the Direct Deposit option if possible. If checks are lost in the mail or sent to invalid mailing addresses, we require two weeks to pass before we will stop payment and reissue your refund. Please call the Controller's Office at 828-262-2110 to request a new check.