COVID-19 Information| HEERF Reporting

The Financial Aid Office is open Monday through Friday from 9 am through 5 pm.  If you need assistance, the easiest way to communicate is emailing financialaid@pacificu.edu.  You may also email your financial aid counselor directly; you can find your counselor's contact information via your Boxer Online account. 

I've heard that Pacific is offering a Tuition Free Semester due to COVID-19 restrictions.  Am I eligible?

Pacific’s Tuition Free Semester is designed to allow undergraduate students the opportunity to take advantage of some campus experiences that had to be limited during the COVID-19 pandemic. Information and the Tuition Free Semester FAQ is available here.  The Tuition Free Semester Application is here.

My family has been affected financially by the pandemic. I’m worried about paying for tuition and other educational expenses. What should I do?

We realize that uncertainty about the future is stressful. Pacific is prepared to assist current students whose families are negatively affected by COVID-19. If your and/or your family’s financial circumstances change, we encourage you to be in touch with Pacific’s financial aid office.

If I have to drop a class that is in a sequence and end up having to enroll for an additional (9th) semester, will I receive financial aid?

You may appeal for an additional semester of institutional aid and all COVID-19 related appeals will be approved. If you enroll for less than full time (12 credits), you will receive a prorated amount of your institutional aid based on the number of credits you are taking. To qualify for federal loans, and to maintain an in-school deferment, you must be enrolled in 6 credits or more.

Will my financial aid disbursement be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?

At this time, the Financial Aid Office will disburse financial aid at the originally scheduled times. Refunds are posted the first week of classes.

On March 20, the US Department of Education said I can suspend payments on my federal student loans. What do I need to do to suspend my payments?

You can ask for an administrative forbearance. Being in an administrative forbearance means that you can temporarily stop making your federal student loan payments without becoming delinquent. Because interest is being waived during the COVID-19 national emergency, interest will not accrue (accumulate) while you are in forbearance. If you request an administrative forbearance, you will not have any payments due for as long as the administrative forbearance lasts. Your loan servicer will cancel any scheduled auto-debit payments. After the administrative forbearance ends, you will have to resume making payments. If you wish to use auto-debit, you may restart auto-debit payments; they will not automatically resume.

Update:  ***The student loan payment pause is extended until 60 days after the Department is permitted to implement the debt relief program, or the litigation is resolved. If the program has not been implemented and the litigation has not been resolved by June 30th, 2023, payments will resume 60 days after that. Borrowers will be notified before payments restart*** 

How do I find my loan servicer? I don’t know what that means.

Your federal student loans are assigned to a loan servicer once the loan is disbursed. If you don’t know who your loan servicer is, log into studentaid.gov using your FSA ID. A summary of your federal student loans, as well as your loan servicer, is available on this site. All federal loan servicers have an online portal, through which you can manage your loan repayment. If you haven’t done so, we recommend creating an account immediately. Your loans do not have to be in repayment to create an account with your loan servicer.

Did you say that interest would be waived on all federally held student loans? Which loans are covered?

All loans owned by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) will have interest waived. That includes Direct Loans, as well as Federal Perkins Loans and Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program loans held by ED. Interest will not accrue on federally held student loans until August 31st, 2022.

Please note that some FFEL Program loans are owned by commercial lenders, and some Perkins Loans are held by the institution you attended. These loans are not eligible for this benefit at this time.

My parents have Direct Parent PLUS loans and I have Direct loans, as well as other federal student aid. Where do we find more information on what’s happening?

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is updating the following site regularly:

StudentAid.gov/announcements-events/coronavirus

This site will provide the most up-to-date information on federal student aid available. Legislation is pending; check this site frequently for updates!