My employer pays my tuition in full. However, my employer does not cover the cost of books. I applied for a Pell grant to help cover the cost of books, whenever I get a disbursement, the university applies my pell grant to my tuition. So my employer will only pay the remainder of the tuition balance and I am still left with the full coverage of books out of pocket. Is there a way to get this changed so that the Pell grant is applied to my books only and not my tuition?
You can ask the college. They might be willing to hold the Pell grant until your employer pays the bill.
It does make a difference to how much money my daughter gets in her pocket by the order the school applies certain grants and scholarships. Some can only be used for tuition, so if they apply other grants first, there is no tuition left to be paid by the time those grants are received.
@kelsmom. Do you have any ideas about this?
@TSTUDENT12 Have you asked your employer if they could cover part of your books given that the Pell is covering most of your tuition?
In the future…dont file fafsa until after employer pays…
The key is the employer tuition agreement. Does the agreement state that they will pay the full tuition, or the full tuition less any grants awarded to the student? If it’s full tuition, the school has to honor that. I assume the issue is the computer system, so the account needs to be manually adjusted. This is an issue to discuss with the business office (bursar’s office). If you don’t point out the problem, they won’t know it even exists - so go in to politely inquire how this can be fixed.
If the employer agreement is to pay tuition net of grants, though, that is how it has to be.
Do you get tuition reimbursement or does your employer pay the school directly?
This is the difference.
Based on what you wrote it seems like your employer is paying any tuition minus financial aid. If you are being reimbursed for tuition, then you will get your money on the back end.
Otherwise, you will have to see if the school can bill the employer and have it set up that once you release the grades to your employer, they will pay the bill.