As the fall 2018 semester begins, we wanted to share a few important dates and reminders that may affect your financial aid funds. Please mark your calendar if these dates affect you:
- August 20-24: Change of Schedule Period (COSP) – During this time students are able to add and drop courses from their schedule as needed. Because schedules change so much during this week, we do not immediately disburse funds (we don’t want to disburse full-time funds, only to have a student drop some of her hours and lose some of that aid eligibility).
- August 24, 11:59 pm: End of COSP – Your financial aid enrollment (e.g., full-time, ¾-time, half-time, etc.) is calculated based on the courses for which you are registered at 11:59 pm on August 24. Some types of financial aid, like the Access Missouri Grant, require students to be full-time. If this applies to you, be sure you are registered in no fewer than 12 credit hours by this deadline.
- August 27: Disbursement Day – The first round of financial aid disbursements will be made throughout the morning of Monday, August 27. You will not see disbursement at 8:00 am (so don’t worry), but you should see them by 11:00 am or noon. Our office performs some last minute reviews and processes this morning before disbursing.
- August 31: Tentative Refund Day – Financial Aid and Financial Services work closely to disburse financial aid funds and issue refund payments as quickly as possible. Our tentative target is to have refunds issued to student accounts by Friday, August 31. Many factors are involved in this process, which is why the date is tentative. Monitor your student and bank accounts around this time for any refund money you may be receiving.
- September 4: Finance Charges – The University assesses a 1% finance charge on the first business day of the month on any outstanding student account balance. The first finance charge of the fall 2018 term will be assessed on September 4.
Finally, please note that Access Missouri Grant funds do not disburse on this cycle. Our tentative disbursement time frame for these funds is late September due to the steps involved to certify eligible recipients with the state. However, our team is working to improve this process.