<p>I discovered that the meal plans at my university have inflated the cost of dining hall food–for a significant savings (and greater flexibility), I can buy the same dining hall food without a meal plan. I hope to upload money onto my ID card to pay for a few meals a week. The question is, can I use my financial aid in this manner?</p>
<p>Kiruna…It depends on which school you’re attending and what their particular policy is regarding disbursement of FA and handling of “excess” amounts. If your FA award exceeds the sum of tuition, fees, etc. (charges to your student account) many schools will provide the difference to you in various ways. Some schools will issue a check, others require a direct deposit link with a bank account, etc. but you’d again need to check your specific university’s policy.</p>
<p>If and when they send you the “excess” funds, you could use them for other purposes…possibly for dining hall purchases as you describe. You also need to look at whether any of your FA is specifically tied to a particular charge (i.e. only usable for tuition, etc.) as that could impact your situation.</p>
<p>The way it usually works is that you get a certain amount of financial aid that is deposited into your school account. Before you can get any of it, the school takes out the direct billed amounts. Those amounts will include your meal plan if you are signed up for one. Some school require freshmen or students who live on campus or other category of students to be signed up for a meal plan whether they want to have one or not. Or they have a certain category of meal plan that such students have to have. If that is the case, you need to get an override for such rules so that you can take the meal plan off of your account that could go on there automatically. My son had that problem this year. He kept changing his meal plan, and it would look like the change was made but once he hit the done key, it would just revert back to a more expensive plan. He had to call and ask what the problem was–his dorm was categorized as a freshman dorm though it had been changed, so he was limited to certain meal plans whereas upperclassmen could living on campus are permitted to reduce the plans down even more. It was a glitch in the system. But, it could have also been a rule for his dorm and an appeal have to be issued. </p>
<p>So once your meal plan is what you want it to be, or taken off of your account altogether, your total due to the college would be less, and you would get whatever excess that might be there. You can then use those funds for food or other purposes. However, if your financial aid does not cover everything, you may not get a refund. That’s all just math.</p>
<p>We need more info…</p>
<p>How much does your school cost?</p>
<p>What was in your aid pkg?</p>
<p>Are you required to buy a certain meal plan?</p>
<p>Are you sure the meal plans have inflated costs? </p>
<p>How many meals are on a meal plan and how much does the plan cost?</p>