After you enrol in courses, there are two things that you can do to become officially registered on ACORN: pay the Minimum Payment to Register amount on your invoice, or defer your fees until you receive financial aid.
To defer your fees for the upcoming academic session:
- You will need to qualify for government student financial aid, a U of T award of at least 50% of your tuition amount or a graduate funding package.
- You may need to show proof of this aid to U of T if you are expecting financial aid from a province other than Ontario, or U.S. student aid.
- You have tuition fee charges for the current session.
- You do not owe tuition or other fees from previous sessions.
- It must be within the fee deferral period, which begins in mid-July for the Fall term, and mid-April for the summer term.
- You must defer before your division’s Pay or Defer to Register deadline.
- If you believe you are eligible to defer your fees, go to the Tuition Fee Deferral area in ACORN during the fee deferral period.
The Tuition Fee Deferral area is located in the Finances section of ACORN’s main navigation.
- On the Tuition Fee Deferral page, you can read more about fee deferrals and deadlines. If you are eligible to defer your fees through ACORN, you will see a message on the page telling you so.
A message below the Defer Your Fees heading will appear if you are eligible to defer your fees through ACORN.
If you are not currently able to defer your fees, there will be a message towards the bottom of the page explaining why. If it is outside of the fee deferral period, you should check back during mid-July for the Fall term, and mid-April for the summer term. For any other reason, you should get help from someone at U of T by going to ACORN’s ”Need Help” area.
If you cannot currently defer fees through ACORN, a message towards the bottom of the Tuition Fee Deferral page will tell you why.
- To learn more about how to qualify for a fee deferral based on what type of financial aid you expect to receive, open the “How to Qualify for a Fee Deferral” area on the Tuition Fee Deferral page.
You can expand and collapse the How to Qualify for a Tuition Fee Deferral menu.
- Next, read the information provided in the Declaration area. Once you agree to the statements by selecting the checkbox, you can select the “Defer My Fees” button.
To defer, you will need to read and agree to the Declaration.
- If the deferral was processed successfully, you will be brought to a Success screen explaining your next steps.
The success screen will provide you with some helpful next steps.
- Next, visit your ACORN Dashboard. your registration status in the Academics card should have changed to Registered. A financial arrangement will appear under the Finances card.
The Academics and Finances card show your registration status and financial arrangement.
- Your last step is to make sure you pay your remaining balance by the Remaining Balance Payment Deadline. This deadline depends on the financial arrangement shown on your ACORN Dashboard. If you do not pay your fees by the applicable deadline, a monthly service charge of 1.5% compounded (19.56% per year) will be added to your invoice. Check the University Registrar’s website for a list of payment deadlines.
- If the deferral was not processed successfully, you may see a message towards the bottom of the screen telling you why:
- You may have already deferred your fees. Check your ACORN Dashboard to see if your registration status is Registered. If so, you likely already went through this process.
- You may have outstanding fees from a previous session, which you can check on your ACORN Invoice.
- You may not be eligible to register for the upcoming session. In this case, you should contact your registrar through ACORN’s “Need Help” area
If a message appears telling you that ACORN could not process your fee deferral, it will tell you why, and what you should do.