Course Refund Policy


We attempt to make its programs always affordable for those from any economic background. To do this, we provide adjustments based on cost of living, income and financial support, and offer discounts and fee waivers when those are not sufficient. 

Our programs rely heavily on peer-to-peer interaction, and so we try to ensure that people are knowledgeable about the program before entering and that they stay in the program after registering. For this reason, we do not offer refunds or course cancellations after our matching date, except for the reasons outlined below. 

Refunds may only be requested through our cancellation and refund request form. Refunds will be processed by our team within one week and typically take 5-7 business days to post to the account. We cannot speed up this process as it is managed by our payment provider, Stripe.
The non-refundable processing fee is not refundable. This fee is scaled based on your local cost of living.  You can see the fee amount here.  

We offer refunds under the following circumstances:


Up Until the Matching Date (usually early-June)
  • Any reason, including the reasons below

Between Matching Date and Course Start
  • A significant change in financial status or circumstances, such as loss of financial support by your host institution

After Course Start
  • Severe illness or death
  • A pod dynamics issue not resolvable by the Ombuds team within 2 days
  • Deportation or forced and unanticipated emigration

We explicitly do not offer refunds for the following after the matching date:
  • Course is too difficult or takes more time than expected
  • Lab, work, or research project is suddenly available, and the student wasn’t sure it would be
  • Pod dynamics issue that was resolved
  • Student error in matching time (should have submitted a pod swap request before the course started)