Student Account Refunds

If your total amount of financial aid funding (from any combination of grant and loan funds) exceeds the charges on your student account, Penn will generate a student account refund that you can use to spend on indirect education expenses, such as textbooks/supplies, personal expenses, travel, or rent and food costs if you live off campus. Students receiving refunds should carefully budget this funding to ensure they are staying within the allowances in their cost of attendance.

Payments received toward an account that has a $0.00 balance will be reviewed for accuracy and may be returned to the original payer. The University cannot accept excess payment where the intent is to be refunded to the student for personal use. Funds received in this manner will be sent back to the original payer, not the student

Student refunds are produced automatically twice a week during the fall and spring semesters. All other requests for student account refunds will be reviewed and processed by SRFS staff.

Receiving Your Refund

Your student account refund will be produced as either a Direct Deposit refund or a paper check. You can authorize direct deposit to a designated U.S. bank account via Penn.Pay. After you log in, select the "Refunds" option in the top menu and follow the instructions. We strongly encourage enrolling in Direct Deposit to expedite access to your funds, as the process of producing and mailing a check to your local address will delay your receipt. You will receive an email notification when your student refund is produced.

You must have a valid U.S. or Canadian Learning From address, phone number, and email address on file to sign up for direct deposit. 

Please note: Direct deposit for student account refunds is a separate process from direct deposit for student employment. To receive your work-study earnings via direct deposit, please sign up on Workday@Penn.

International Student Refunds

International students who use our vendor partner FlyWire to make payments will receive their refunds via Flywire. 

Other international students without a U.S. bank account will receive their refunds via our vendor partner PayMyTuition. You will receive an email directly from PayMyTuition with instructions on how to receive your funds via wire transfer. 

Read more about Penn's vendor relationships with FlyWire and PayMyTuition on our wire transfer page. 

Managing Your Refund

Your refund, along with your expected family contribution (EFC) and work-study earnings, are meant to cover your unbilled educational expenses. It can be overwhelming to receive a large lump sum of money at the beginning of the semester. Please remember that this student account refund, in combination with any other sources of funding, should last you the duration of the semester.