CS:

Any online university that participates in the federal student aid system sends “left over” financial aid to the student. It’s the student’s money, and there’s no possible way that the school can justify keeping it.

When your financial aid eligibility is analyzed, the analysis is based on your total “Cost of Attendance”. That’s the financial aid term that refers to the actual cost – direct and indirect – of actually attending that particular school. That’s not just tuition, because you are probably already well aware that tuition is just a small part of the total cost.

Cost of Attendance includes tuition, books, school fees, room and board and miscellaneous education-related expenses. Those “extras” differ a little bit from student to student – especially in the case of an online school, where there’s no allowance for “transportation costs” to and from the school. In your case, however, a computer allowance is certainly part of the “Cost of Attendance”.

Notice that not all of those expenses are paid directly to the school. Again, your situation may be somewhat less common, because it may be that you have to buy your books directly from the college. In a more traditional college, the students are responsible for purchasing their own books – and that’s what part of their financial aid money is for.

When any school receives financial aid funds intended for a registered student, they take those funds and apply them to the student’s account balance. Typically, a student’s account includes all of his/her tuition charges, school fees, and maybe room and board. Once the balance has been paid in full, the school must return any remaining financial aid funds to the student – because those funds were given TO the student for his/her use in paying all kinds of additional college expenses.

If you know of a school that is withholding “overage” funds, I would recommend that you contact the US Department of Education at 1-800-4Fed-Aid. That’s an illegal activity that they will certainly want to investigate.

One last caveat: Be sure that any online school that you consider IS an eligible institution of higher education. Not all online schools are eligible to participate in the federal government’s student aid system, and any school that does not participate should be very carefully scrutinized, as non-participation is a very likely red flag about the quality of the program.

Good luck to you – I hope this helped.