I am a graduate student (PhD) at a university and I TA classes there. Our tuition is about 80% covered, which means I owe on average about $1000 a semester back to the university. Our stipends are about $2300 a month, for living expenses.
Today, we were all given a refund of around $6500. Usually the university gives a refund when we have a scholarship worth more than our expenses/tuition, so we assumed it was something around this. The refund wiped out two semester’s worth of tuition I hadn’t paid and I am getting the rest back.
We just got an email saying it was an error and we need to give them the amount back. I don’t have $2000 to give them for the tuition it cleared. I don’t get paid anything until October either.
I know this happens with jobs sometimes, but I haven’t seen it with anyone’s university. Do I have any leverage here? Really cheap repayment plans at like $1/paycheck kinda thing?