Indiana University, Purdue University and Indiana State University all receive financial aid refund checks before classes start. USI does not.

USI students receive refund checks three weeks after classes start every semester but can use Eagle Access cards at USI bookstore to purchase textbooks with financial aid a week before classes. This policy was a collaboration of the Bursar’s Office and the Financial Aid Office and began seven or eight years ago.

Financial Aid Director Mary Jo Harper said few campuses offer a similar program, and USI goes “above and beyond” to meet the needs of its students.

“Technically, a student has no aid at that point,” Harper said. “Plus, we have no idea if you will even be attending.”

She said it would be risky to disburse refunds in the form of a check before classes. She said if a student took money and decided not to attend USI, the student is left owing money. If they don’t pay, the university has to foot the bill.

“It’s a two-edged sword,” Harper said. “We’d have no way of monitoring how they spent that money.”

Federal guidelines dictate that a school must disburse Federal Student Aid (FSA) refund checks within 14 days of the date it was created or within 14 days of the first day of classes. Harper said USI chooses to do the latter because it is the most “appropriate and accurate.” At that point, registration and enrollment have been confirmed.

“We don’t have to estimate whether aid is in or not,” she said.

She said the number of students who rely on refund checks to buy books is a “small population.”

“Most students are responsible enough to save money over the summer for books,” Harper said.

Before, students applied for loans and filed paperwork to qualify.

They could take that money and use it anywhere but would have to eventually pay it back, she said.

“It was not a student friendly process,” USI Bursar Suzanne Divine said. “Most of them didn’t want to mess with the paper work.”

Devine said her office cannot begin sending out checks until aid has been processed. Until processing in the second or third week of classes, the aid is only pending.

“We can’t give away money that isn’t there yet,” Devine said. “This is the only way we can do it legally,” Devine said.

Even direct deposit does not allow students to receive refunds before classes “but it does help,” she said.

She said her office does everything they can to make the process easier on students.

“I know students don’t understand, but we work long hard hours to get them refunds,” she said as she thumbed through four pages of financial aid students. “We’re not tying up the money.”

USI bookstore manager Michael Goelzhauser said the book loans “come out of the bookstore account.” He said the financial aid office sends a list of students with refund money available and the bookstore adds them into the registers.

When a student spends $200 from their card, the bookstore is charged. Then, they send that information back to financial aid where it is processed and the money is taken from refund checks accordingly, he said.

“We’re not funded by the university,” Goelzhauser said. “We have to come up with a lot of our funds on our own.”

According to the National Association of College Stores, 24.6 percent of book costs are attributed to universities. The rest, 76.4 percent, is attributed to the publishers. Stores like Wal-Mart and Amazon have the buying power to get these books at cheaper rates, Goelzhauser said.

Only about 20 percent of their sales come from financial aid, he said.

Senior psychology major Anastasia Montgomery said the book loan policy is a good thing.

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had my books for three weeks,” she said. “I didn’t have to get any paperwork or anything. They [the financial aid office] have always been helpful to me.”

She said if people filed their paperwork on time, they wouldn’t complain about the length of processing. Senior political science major Amy Martin said that she doesn’t use the refund money for books.

“They are too expensive at the bookstore,” she said. “I shop on Amazon.”

She said the books online are probably one-fifth of what they are at the bookstore.

“I work three jobs to get that money,” Martin said.