For those who use the monthly payment plan, what are your thoughts about the new version for 2017-2018?
I started to sign up, but got to a screen that had me enter my payment method. For the previous payment plan (as well as the payment plan used by my other child’s college), we would send payments from our banks on a specified schedule, so the plans never asked for a payment method (for anything other than the fee for enrolling in the plan).
I spent some time on hold and then talking to someone in the billing office. With the new payment plan, they will automatically draw the monthly payment out of the account that you give them (rather than receiving payments that you send to them). This is a definite downgrade in my book, because I sent monthly payments from two different accounts, which helped us manage our cash flow. That is no longer possible with the new plan, and will cause me some headaches changing my accounting methods.