What to Expect During the Summer at HCU?
The Summer semester at HCU starts our academic year, we are a summer-header school. It also functions differently than the Fall and Spring semesters, read below so you can be well-informed about what can be expected during the summer semester at HCU.
Registration
Undergraduate
Half-time: Six credit hours / Full-time: 12 credit hours
Graduate
Half-time: Three credit hours / Full-time: Five credit hours
Doctoral
Half-time: Three credit hours / Full-time: Five credit hours
Budget & Package
The Summer budget and package is a manually added component to students’ accounts. The system will automatically package a student for fall and spring semesters, but the summer component will be re-budgeted and re-packaged by the time courses begin in May of each academic year.
*** You may be asked by the Office of Student Accounts to enroll in a summer payment plan to secure your summer courses from being dropped, in order to meet the Financial Settlement deadline depending on your courses’ start date, before the Office of Financial Aid can complete this process. ***
Budget
A student’s budget is their estimated cost of attendance for the academic year, this does not indicate actual charges to be applied to a student’s account. The budget amount governs the amount of aid that can be packaged on a student’s account and is directly impacted by the number of weeks a student intends to attending within an academic year.
Package
A student’s package is the amount of financial aid that a student is offered from the Department of Education and/or from HCU.
- Federal Aid requires at least half-time enrollment in each semester in order to disburse.
- Institutional Aid requires full-time enrollment in each semester in order to disburse.
- State and Merit Aid will not be packaged in the summer semester, but you may be eligible for a select number of departmental scholarships.
- Disbursement of departmental scholarships are dependent on when the scholarship is submitted to our office for processing.
Authorization
Our office strives to authorize aid as swiftly as possible after we have completed the summer re-budgeting and re-packaging process, however this process will be completed by the end of May each summer semester. Authorization means the packaged aid has been projected to a student’s account so that the Office of Student Accounts can see that the financial aid will be coming to HCU. The Office of Student Accounts uses authorized aid to consider a student financial settled for the semester.
Disbursement
There is only one disbursement in the summer semester. This is due to the Department of Education’s fiscal year starting over on July 1st of each year, meaning HCU will receive the summer disbursement after the Independence Day holiday.
This does mean an Online student may have completed their first 8-weeks entirely and started the second 8-weeks before the disbursement arrives at HCU.
Refund
- The Office of Student Accounts processes refunds to students’ accounts for any excess financial aid within 14 days of disbursement. Example: If disbursement occurs on July 8th, then refunds will be processed by July 22nd of that academic year.
- They can be reached via phone: 281-649-3471 or via email: studentaccounts@hc.edu.
Additional Information
Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP)
If selected for SAP, a returning student from the spring semester of the previous academic year will need to prioritize the completion of their SAP Appeal to prevent delays in their summer package being processed.
Transfer Monitoring (TM) Hold
This hold is placed on every new or transfer student’s account, at least once an academic year, in order for HCU’s loans coordinator to verify that there are no previous disbursements at another university prior to Federal Loans being disbursed for the current academic year. If action needs to be taken by the student, they will be communicated to via their HCU email account.
Direct Deposit
If you would like to have your summer refund direct deposited into your checking account or do not wish to wait for a paper check to be mailed to your address on file, look for eRefund (Direct Deposit) Set-up on the Office of Student Accounts’ FAQ page.
Expected Graduation Date (EGD)
- If you are in need of a summer only budget due to graduating at the end of the summer semester, you will need to contact the Office of Academic Records to have your EGD updated.
- They can be reached via phone: 281-649-3213 or via email: academicrecords@hc.edu.
Information included in this publication is subject to change. Contact the Office of Financial Aid with any questions you may have about this information.