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What is the Student Account?
Your Student Account is a portal that shows an official ledger of your charges (tuition, fees, housing, meal plans, etc.) and credits (scholarships, non-service awards, loans, and other types of financial aid). The portal is maintained by the University’s Student Financials Office (formerly known as Student Accounting Services). Please refer to the Student Account resource page for details.
I am a fully funded GRS PhD or MFA student and I received a bill.
The University’s Student Financials Office (formerly known as Student Accounting Services, SAS) will periodically send out payment reminders to students who have a balance on their account. This usually happens at the end of June for the upcoming fall semester. The fall semester payment deadline is the first week in August (for continuing students; the payment deadline for new, incoming students is the second week in September). These emails are automated and the deadlines do not align with the required time needed by your school’s financial aid office to process your financial aid.
If you qualify for a tuition scholarship and insurance credit (please refer to our Tuition Scholarship FAQs and Student Health Insurance Plan FAQs for details) you should see your award credit to your student account before the start of the fall semester. As long as you do qualify for the scholarship or credit, you may disregard these specific charges on your student account and emails from the Student Financials Office.
However, some charges, such as Convenience Points, the Sports Pass, Additional 1042-S Withholdings, MBTA Passes, Late Fees, and Health Services Charges, are never covered by any fellowship. Please check your student account in MyBU Student (Financials > Student Account Details) and make arrangements to pay the balance by the payment deadline for the semester.
The balance you see may also be due to medical insurance. While the full cost of the health insurance plan appears in the Fall semester, medical insurance credits may be awarded on a semester basis. If you qualify for a medical insurance credit in the Spring semester, you do not need to pay the remaining balance of the plan upfront. However, you do need to pay all other outstanding charges that are your responsibility.
I was awarded a scholarship and paid all other outstanding charges, so why do I still see a balance?
You may have added a class after our office awarded your scholarship. If you are a PhD or MFA student with a full fellowship and you recently added or dropped a course, your scholarship may need to be updated. GRS generally applies the same amount of scholarship to the fall and spring semesters assuming the student will continue to enroll in the same number of credits in both semesters. Once the initial scholarship has been applied, we wait until the end of the semester’s add/drop period (mid-October/late February) to manually reconcile everyone’s registration and scholarship. The majority of our PhD & MFA students continuously add and drop classes over a six-month period which is the reason why we wait until the end of the add/drop period before we start to manually reconciling scholarships. Please feel free to contact GRS Financial Aid team at grsaid@bu.edu to request an immediate adjustment of your scholarship once you have finalized your course selection for the semester; otherwise, we will adjust it in late October/early March. Please include your BU ID when emailing our office.
Do you offer a payment plan?
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GRS) does not offer a payment plan. The University offers a Pre-Payment Plan that allows you to break down your expenses for each semester into five monthly installments, rather than a lump sum payment. The Fall semester plan runs from the preceding May through September, the Spring semester plan runs from the preceding October through February. For more information about the payment plan, please visit the Student Financials Office Payment Plan FAQs.
I paid for my tuition and fees and then received a scholarship. How can I get this money returned to me?
If you have a valid credit on your account you can request an electronic refund to Student Financials office via the Graduate Student Refund Request Form. The Student Financials office can be reached at studenta@bu.edu.
I borrowed a loan to cover my outstanding charges and received a “Title IV” refund that has left a balance on my student account. Why did I receive this refund?
Federal regulations mandate that the University is permitted use federal loan funds to cover only certain charges (tuition and mandatory fees) and the remainder is then refunded to you. Other charges, such as medical insurance, convenience points, and sports passes, cannot be deducted unless you authorize it. You can authorize the use of federal loans to cover charges such as medical insurance by filing a Federal Financial Aid Credit Authorization through MyBU Student (select “Student Permissions” from the Financials navigation in the left-hand menu). Please visit the Student Financials office page for more information on refunds. The Student Financials office can be reached at studenta@bu.edu.