Wichita State hosted a virtual town hall Thursday to address questions, including those about refunds and credits. According to the university website, WSU will begin updating student accounts to reflect credits for on-campus housing, meal plans, and student parking, and issuing refunds starting on April 3. 

But if you owe the university money, you should know that students must pay debts to WSU before refunds will be issued.

“A lot of it seems like, ‘Well, I should get it back,’ but your dollars are still being in use and those dollars are still being used to help you,” said Aaron Austin, associate vice president for student affairs.

Student fees

Student fees will not be refunded to WSU students. 

“When it comes to student fees, the thing to remember is that those programs continue to serve students,” Austin said. “One great example is Counseling and Prevention Services. A lot of their funding comes through student fees and they’re still meeting with students, they’re still available to students.”

Austin said student fees go towards such things as Student Involvement and the Student Government Association meetings. He said SGA has already provided many dollars to various organizations and individuals for different clubs to travel and for students who presented papers at conferences, for example. 

“That’s where those dollars go,” Austin said.

For those thinking, “I‘m not using that,” Austin said to consider that a friend or classmate may be. 

“That’s the reason why we made the decision that those student fees are not something that we could effectively refund,” he said.

As for tuition, classes are continuing, even though they’re in a different format, so there will be no tuition reimbursements, Provost Rick Muma said.

“Some of the things we’re not going to be refunding is obviously tuition,” Muma said. “There are still costs. We still have faculty that are being paid to do that.”

Course and program fees aren’t being refunded because there are still costs that go into those, Muma said. 

“To support higher usage of Blackboard Panopto soon, and various other technologies, we need to maintain those fees,” he said. 

Campus infrastructure fees are not being refunded, as the money goes to One Stop and IT services, which have ramped up due to online learning necessities.

Muma said there won’t be any additional fees for classes that have shifted online.

“If they were enrolled in the traditional face-to-face course and now it’s an online, you’re still going to pay the traditional face-to-face,” Muma said. “If you’re enrolled in an online course, you’re going to pay an online fee. So, there won’t be any additional costs.”

Student housing and meal plans 

Students who moved out of on-campus student housing prior to March 22 will be issued housing (room and meal) credits for the time period from March 22 to May 15 (excluding spring break). WSU student accounts will reflect this. Amounts are based on individual types of room and meal plan. Unused spring Dining Dollars will also be credited to student accounts.

Student parking

Parking credits will be issued to student accounts for March 16 to May 15. 

Refund disbursement

• • If the original payment was made by credit card, the refund may be applied to the card used to make the payment. Allow five to seven business days for the transaction to appear on credit cards
  • If the original payment was not made by credit card and the student has direct deposit/ACH information on file, the refund will be issued directly to the bank account on file. Allow three to five business days for direct deposit to post.
  • If the original payment was not made by credit card and the student does not have a direct deposit/ACH information on file, refunds will be made by check and sent to the address on file. Allow five to seven business days for the check to arrive through the mail.

According to the WSU website, once all credits have been applied, the account will be reviewed to determine if a refund is due. University refunding rules apply, including:

• • Compliance with all federal financial aid policies on refunding Title IV funds.
  • Non-refundable scholarships (i.e. those given to athletes and other full-ride scholars for housing, etc.), will not be refunded
  • All debts owed to the university by the student will be satisfied before any refund being issued

Anyone with questions about housing and dining credit amounts is encouraged to contact Housing and Residence Life by email at [email protected] or by phone at 316-978-3693. Questions about parking credits should be directed to Student Accounts at 316-978-3333.