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Financial Aid and Payment Plan

Edwin Blackwood

Has anyone had success with granting a student financial aid and a payment plan?

Here is what I would expect to happen with a student we'll call Richard.

1. We generate Richard's charges (tuition of $2992 and a fee of $150)

2. We apply Richard's financial Aid (2 different scholarships totalling $2682)

3. We apply a payment plan to Richard's account - 3-pay with ⅓ due today, ⅓ due Oct 1, final ⅓ due Nov 1

4. Richard's bill reflects his (total charges minus his financial aid) divided into 3 equal payments (based on the payment plan). So, in his case 3 payments of $153.33 (OK - 1st of final payment of $153.34)

WHY doesn't that happen???

After doing all of the above, when Richard looks at his bill, it shows that he owes the amount of his first payment plan of 1/3 of his tuition (no financial aid applied!) plus a one-time fee. WHY? WHY?

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Higher Education Billing Management

Comments

Dawn Alonso

I have similar questions that go in the same context. I think it all boils down to the system not calculating on the amount still due on an item but the full amount charged, at least for me.

Scenario-John Smith has charges, makes several small payments toward the balance, not paying in full. We reach out and offer an installment plan. When I select the charges, it only notes the total due. Any payments come off of the first installment. What I am looking for is the installment plan to work with his remaining balance. I usually unapply the payments for any charge not paid in full, put the installment plan on (eliminating any charges that are paid in full), then reapply remainder of payments. It is almost like you have to do it while you are on the phone with them or talking to them in person for it to be accurate. We have a form that they sign for the installment plan, I don't want to put it on before they sign that.

Installment plans work, there is just a lot more finagling you have to do if they have made any payment attempt, since the plan doesn't work off of remaining balance.

Stephen Pilon

We have been told by BB that setting up payment plans with financial aid is not working as expected. They are working on it, but the system doesn't seem to know how to integrate both the tuition/charges and the FA into the payment plan. At least that is my understanding. Oh joy!

Dawn Alonso

I wish when you set up a payment plan it would take the amount still due on the items selected instead of the full amount. I have had cases where people started to pay small amounts before formally setting up a payment plan. I want to do the payment plan on the amount owed, not the original amount. Seem logical right? Nope, you need to set up the payment plan for the full amount and their payments already made will allocate to the first payment due. I personally don't like this because it makes all of the installments higher because it doesn't take into account that there is a lower balance due. Plus I have to put the plan on, take it off until we receive their payment plan form (we all know some people drag their feet on this stuff,) then put it back on when the form is received.

Do you put your financial aid in under the Enrollment Management tab or just through Billing? I looked at having it entered prior to receiving the roster, but honestly it just caused more work for multiple people and I didn't see where the student could see the anticipated aid.

Also As a tag a long on this post....

We set the date for Tuition and Room & Board out to an extended due date. All of our students get a Tuition and Room & Board scholarship for any amount not covered by Federal and State Grants. Apparently when I push that date out it causes an issue when I do go in and post the FA. I have FA set up to automatically apply to Tuition and Room & Board, but due to a glitch it does not. So all of the FA goes unapplied, you have to go in and manually apply the FA afterwards. ? Yes, I have a ticket in and they are working on some issues, so until then here I sit running an outstanding credit report and applying all of the credits. Good brain exercise for all of the math I am doing this way? ? Moral of the story is don't make the due dates beyond you normal for any reason, it can cause issues with payments or credits applying to the charge.

Karen Avery

@Dawn Alonso Hi, Dawn .. Has this issue ever been resolved? We're trying to set up our payment plans and auto pay and are running into the same issue. Thanks for any guidance you can give us. Karen

Dawn Alonso

@Karen Avery
Hi Karen,

The payment plans work best on items that do not have a payment applied to them. It will calculate on the full amount of the billing item, not the remaining balance. Then once you click the payment and set it, it will take any payments against items and distribute it across all of the payments.

There is no way for anticipated financial aid to affect the balance since is not a credit item until it is awarded.

Our circumstance is complete different in most in that our guys don't pay tuition and room and board, they use a combination of state and federal grants and a Williamson scholarship to pay those items. They pay for most other schools what would probably equate to lab fees (they get shop tools and books for those fees.) We set the financial aid so that it would only go towards Tuition and Room & Board, you can do this in the settings portion of the program. We then calculate payments on only the items that they would pay.