Yes, if you overpay, the school will refund any money. Why would your parents pay if they are not billed? Why would they, say, pay in September and then have the money refunded to YOU (them?) in October? If they want you to have the money, why wouldn’t they just give it to you and avoid all the paying and refunding and paperwork?
It’s also true that if you earn outside scholarships which are sent directly to the school and that causes an overage you will receive a refund IF the terms of the scholarship allow that. If it is only for tuition, it may be returned to the giver of the scholarship. This is slightly more likely to happen if you are a top top student and getting 100% of your tuition, dorm, meals, fees paid by a Regent’s scholarship and earn some outside scholarships that can be used for anything. Very slightly. Doesn’t happen often.
Why don’t you just get all these outside scholarships and then worry about how you’ll end up with extra money.
I think I’m beginning to understand this. What you are HOPING is that you will get a scholarship…but that your parents will also pay…and then YOU will get their money back as a refund. Right?
Here is how college billing goes.
All scholarships awarded are applied by the school to their billable costs. Then you receive your bill with the balance owed by your family. If you get a full scholarship for all costs…your bill will be $0, so your parents won’t be paying ANYTHING. Therefore there will be no extra money to refund to you.
Here is what you can do…get that full cost of attendance scholarship someplace. Then ask your PARENTS to give you the money they have saved. Will they do that? Bet not. And I’m betting that is what you want.