New Families

Business Office Basics for New Parents and Families

Student Financial Responsibility - Students are Responsible for Their Balances: 

  • As a parent or family member, you may be helping your student understand and pay their balance. However, students themselves are the sole party responsible for prompty paying any charges owed to the university related to their attendance. This is true even if a third party, such as a parent, grandparent, or benefits provider (such as your employer, the U. S. Department of Defense, or Veteran’s Administration) is planning to pay their tuition. Even if a student expects financial aid to fully cover their bill, it is still the student’s responsibility to ensure their balance is fully paid. If any of these plans fall through or if their balance changes, the cost of tuition, fees, and any other charges remains the student’s responsibility to cover.
  • All students will be presented with and required to accept the Student Financial Responsibility Agreement at the beginning of each semester within the myHPU portal. 

Withdrawing and dropping courses may result in charges owed even if the student is no longer attending: 

  • If your student’s plans change and they are unable to attend for any reason, it is your student’s responsibility to drop their courses.  The only way to get a 100% credit of tuition and mandatory fee charges is to drop courses by the add/drop deadline posted in HPU’s Academic Calendar, usually about a week after classes start. Students who remain registered past the add/drop deadline will no longer be eligible for a 100% credit of tuition and mandatory fees, and will still have to pay HPU for classes they are not taking at either 50%, 75%, or 100% of the cost depending on the date they withdraw or drop their courses.

hpu IS BOUND BY FERPA, a U.S. FEDERAL LAW, AND will not DISCUSS YOUR STUDENT'S ACCOUNT WITH YOU WITHOUT THE STUDENT'S EXPRESS, WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION. 

Your student can choose to add you as a Payer (Authorized User) to view and pay their balance in the payment portal.  If you are authorized by your student, you will gain access to your own credentials to log in and monitor their financial status, make payments on their behalf, and more (depending on the access they grant). Visit this page for more information and instructions.

IMPORTANT! Granting someone access to view and pay a student’s account does not mean HPU staff are authorized to speak with that person. HPU staff are required to protect student privacy under U.S law and cannot speak with a parent or third party just because they have been granted access to the portal.

Your student can also authorize HPU staff to speak with you about their account details. Under U. S. law, adding an authorized user to a student's payment portal does not mean HPU staff can talk with that family member about a student account. The student needs to complete a specific form and file it with the Registrar's Office. 

More information on FERPA, including information about how a student can allow HPU staff to talk with a parent or family member on their behalf, is available on the Registrar's FERPA website.

Because the student is the financially and academically responsible party, HPU will correspond primarily with the student even if the student authorizes you as the parent or family member under FERPA. 

If your student is expecting more in scholarships, loans, grants, etc., than in HPU charges for tuition, fees, housing, and other costs, then your student may be eligible to receive a Financial Aid refund at the beginning of the semester. Financial Aid refunds post automatically at the beginning of the semester. We recommend that students sign up for eRefund to receive their refund as quickly as possible. Find out more on the Business Office's Refunds page.

How much does my student owe? Your student can view their account details (tuition, fee, housing, meal plan, and other charges) and the overall balance by logging into the myHPU portal, then clicking the Business & Payments icon in the Student QuickLaunch section. balances change based upon changes to registration, financial aid, and more. Students should check their balance frequently. Review this page for more info, and check out the Business Office's Tuition Payment Calculator for a tutorial on estimating what to pay if all charges and aid are not yet on the account by the Tuition Payment Deadline. 

When do we need to pay? Tuition deadlines are always before the start of each semester. Official dates are published in HPU's Academic Calendar. For more information, visit the Business Office Paying Tuition page. 

WHAT IF WE NEED A LOWER, MONTHLY PAYMENT? Find out more about payment plans on the Business Office Payment Plans page.

WHAT IF MY STUDENT'S SCHOLARSHIP, LOAN, ETC. IS MISSING? See below for more information. 

How do we pay? Learn how to pay a student’s bill on the Business Office Paying Tuition page.

  • TIP! Paying online via eCheck (ACH) is convenient, and free of surcharges! There is a processing fee added for debit/credit card payments. 
  • Paying with a 529 plan? Follow the payment instructions for making payments via check on the Business Office Paying Tuition page. HPU does not accept direct wire payments from your 529 provider, but some plans do allow electronic disbursement. Check with your provider on their disbursement and payment policies.

Missing Financial Aid, Scholarship, Loan, Grant, etc.

If a scholarship, loan, etc. is missing from an eBill Statement, remember that statements only show charges and credits up to the date the document was created. More up-to-date information may show that the scholarship, loan, etc. is present. To confirm, your student should check their Payment Portal Activity Details for the most up-to-date, detailed information about pending credits to their account. The Payment Portal will only reflect known, authorized credits for financial aid, loans, scholarships, grants, benefits, and other reductions to the tuition. Once those amounts reflect in Activity Details, they reduce the amount owed to HPU.

The most common reason that a student's financial aid, scholarship, grant, loan, or other credit is not yet on their account is because the student (or parent, for Parent PLUS loans) has not yet completed all requirements. Please check that all the below have been completed: 

  1. If a student is not enrolled as a full-time student (12 hours for undergraduate students, 9 hours for graduate students), scholarships may not be reflected. Your student needs to ensure they have met all requirements to be registered as a full-time student.
  2. If your student has outstanding tasks to complete in their Financial Aid portal, loans and aid may not be reflected. For example, the student may need to accept an offered award or loan, the student may need to complete an Athletics scholarship form, or the student (or you as the parent or guardian for certain loans) may need to complete a Master Promissory Note or Loan Entrance Counseling. Your student should visit the myHPU portal, then click on “Financial Aid” to see if they have any outstanding requirements.
  3. If the student is expecting active-duty military or veteran’s benefits, they must complete steps listed on the Military Campus Programs website.
  4. If the student is expecting other benefits or discounts, the student should ensure they have met the requirements for those discounts to apply.
  5. Once all requirements have been met, allow several weeks for HPU offices to process the documents. The student should check their payment portal frequently for the amounts to post, and monitor their my.hpu.edu email for any requests for additional information or updates.

If your student has confirmed that they have completed all requirements and have allowed 1-2 weeks for processing, and the amounts are still not on their account, the student should contact the appropriate office as shown here (include their HPU student ID, beginning with an “@” symbol):

  • Missing International Visiting Student Scholarship: contact Student Accounts at studentaccounts@hpu.edu
  • Missing Scholarships, Loans, Grants: contact Financial Aid at financialaid@hpu.edu
  • Missing Veteran’s Benefits: contact va@hpu.edu 
  • Missing Active-Duty Military Tuition Scholarships and/or Tuition Assistance (TA): contact your Base Advisor, or, if you do not have their contact information, contact mcp@hpu.edu
  • Missing Partnership Discount, Employer Payment, or other miscellaneous credit or discount: contact Student Accounts at studentaccounts@hpu.edu