Bursar's Office

Fall semester fees are billed in early July and spring semester fees in early December. Bills are delivered through the online payment system for enrolled students and those on off-campus study programs. Each time a new billing statement is available, an e-mail notice is sent from the Bursar’s Office to each student. Students are able to set up other recipients (called Authorized Payers) to view and/or pay their bills. Each Authorized Payer is also sent an e-mail, as designated in the Authorized Payer’s online profile, whenever a new statement is generated. Students who have graduated or otherwise permanently left the College receive paper bills only.

Payment for the fall semester is due in early August, and for the spring semester in early January.  You will receive an email notification when the statement is available and the exact due date will be listed on the statement.  All student charges are due within 30 days of the date of the statement on which they first appear.  The student cannot complete the enrollment process for the semester until the fee balance has been satisfied by one or more of the following:  payment by the deadline, a payment plan that is on schedule, or student/parent loans.  Incidental charges (such as parking fines & ID card replacements) are billed throughout the year. 

If not paying online, please send a check (along with the bill stub) to Bowdoin's lockbox in Boston. The address is printed on the PDF version of the bill which can be viewed or downloaded and printed from the online payment system site.

If not paying the exact amount billed, please also submit a Student Account Payment Worksheet with the payment to the lockbox.  If paying through the online payment system, please either email the Worksheet to bursar@bowdoin.edu or mail it to: Bursar’s Office, Bowdoin College, 5420 College Station, Brunswick, ME 04011-8445. 

If you choose to make payments from a different online banking service, please use the following address: Bursar's Office, Bowdoin College, 5420 College Station, Brunswick, ME 04011-8445. This is our preferred address for payments not accompanied by the stub from the paper copy of the bill, and especially for payments by scholarship agents, lenders, and other third parties.

Payments sent other than by first-class mail should be addressed to: Bursar's Office, Bowdoin College, 5420 College Station, Brunswick, ME 04011-8445.

Yes. Wire instructions are provided on the PDF version of the online billing statement and under the Wire Transfer Payment section of our website.  

Bowdoin College does not accept credit cards in payment of students' bills.

No, students’ bills can be paid online with an electronic check, with a paper check, or by payment plan. Please visit the OneCard site, www.bowdoin.edu/onecard, for details about where the card can be used.

Payments from the two payment plan agents [Tuition Management Systems (TMS) and SallieMae's TuitionPay] are paid to Bowdoin at the end of each month and are credited to the student’s account then.  However, the amount of the plan is credited to the student's account so that it reduces the billed balance for the appropriate semester.  This means that any "Amount Due" on the student account statement is in addition to the amount scheduled to be paid by the plan.  This "Amount Due" should be paid directly to the Bursar's Office, unless the payment plan is increased to cover it.

Our office may have received the payment after the statement was generated. If it appears that we did not receive a payment that you sent, first contact the bank to determine if the check was cashed. If it was cashed, please furnish a copy of the front and back of the canceled check to our office for research purposes. Also, please remember that the online statement is a "snapshot in time" as of the date the bill was generated, not live activity. Payments received subsequently will appear on the following month's statement.

Checks returned to the College are charged back to the student’s account and a $15 fee is imposed.

This type of payment is called an electronic check, or eCheck.  Here are some common reasons eChecks are rejected:

• ERROR: R03 - No Account/Unable to Locate:  The account number structure is valid, but does not correspond to the individual or is not an open account.  When a payment fails for this reason, you will not see any activity in your bank account related to the eCheck because the account could not be found in order for the transaction to be attempted.  

• ERROR: R04 - Invalid Account Number:  This means the account number structure is not valid. The digits may be incorrect or the account string may contain an incorrect number of digits. Please refer to a bank statement for clarification, or contact the bank.  When a payment fails for this reason, you will not see any activity in your bank account related to the eCheck because the account could not be found in order for the transaction to be attempted.  Numbers on a debit card associated with a checking or savings account cannot be substituted for the account number. 

•  ERROR: R09 - Uncollected Funds:  This indicates that at the time the eCheck was presented to your bank for payment, the bank had placed a hold on the funds.  Please refer to your bank to find out when the funds will become available before attempting another eCheck payment.

• ERROR: R01 - Insufficient Funds:  This means that at the time the eCheck was presented to your bank for payment, the amount of funds in your bank account was less than the amount of the eCheck.