I am new to all of this. Child is going to out of state public school. Bill will be 35k per year. We have not filled out any financial aid forms or FAFSA. Do not qualify for aid or grants. So we will be paying cash. Credit card payment is a 2.75% surcharge. We are fine with the surcharge for the down payment. Future payments require an echeck. How does that work? Is there typically an installment plan? Thanks for any tips or advice.
Usually they have a link to help you set up the e-check. If not, contact your bank and the school.
We pay by e-check. In her portal there is a " pay your bill" section with a link.
E check here too. Very easy to do.
E check or the school also provides an address to send a check to. Not to worry – the school will find a way for you to get the money to them!
Also, I would check with the school directly to see if there are installment plans available.
The payment plan is probably different than just paying by echeck. Many schools have a payment plan option of 3-12 payments but require you to set that up and maybe pay a fee to do that. Both of the schools I pay are happy to take a regular old check too. One school has a due date about a week before school starts, the other is about 3 weeks after the semester starts.
If you cant or dont want to pay electronically from your bank (I pay all my bills that way) surely you can print your bill and write a check. They will happily take your money.
Go to the Student Billing page on the college’s website. Undoubtedly they will describe the process there, and the options. Most schools do offer an installment plan, oftentimes through a third party who administers it.
There are usually cashier counters that one can pay by check (or cash) too. Nevertheless, you can always mail the check to the school. I did that once before they started accepting online transfer. I wish they would take credit card but not at my D’s school.
Have done everything, save the initial deposit, by eCheck. We were also able to set up info for multiple accounts (bank, brokerage, etc.) to draw from.
Ditto online payments. Did ours for instate. Son’s school had a dorm card to put money into for food purchases etal as well- they made it easy for anyone to put money in a student’s account without being privy to how the money was spent. Definitely look at how the billing office works for the school and the dorm- they can be separate from each other in payments. Res Halls was specific in when each of 4 payments was due, with the housing deposit coming out of the final quarterly bill. Tuition and fees were due at the beginning of each semester. Your son’s school likely differs.
btw- have discovered that anyone can make a payment for tuition directly to a school and it does NOT count as a gift. Nice to know if there are any rich relatives wanting to help out. This means more than the tax free $14,000 gift per year from one person can be given without estate tax considerations years later. We’ve been reading up on things since we ought to revise our financial stuff after changing states.
We did the payment plans…9 months of the year…while our kids were undergrads. We called it the mystery money. It went into the savings via direct deposit from my employer. And it went out via auto withdrawal to the colleges. We never saw it…for seven years.
I don’t like the payment plan as it costs extra per payment at my D’s school, and it only spread out the payments over 3 months.
You can pay full amount through your bank or through your school’s payment portal but who pays $35k with cash?
^^Only people who want the extra paperwork required. The cashier at the school will not like you very much (even if you only pay one semester of $17,500)
Thanks for the great responses. I will call the school. You have all provided good insight.
It’s all online, similar to how you might set up an automatic payment for utilities.
We just pay from a 529 plan or write a check. We have found that calling the office leads to folks who are helpful and accommodating.
We also just pay directly from the 529 each trimester. The bill from the school comes about 3 weeks before the term starts.
The surcharge on half of 35K would be around $450. You might want to look into getting an airline miles credit card with limit of at least 18K to see if the miles you’d earn would get you significantly more than $450 worth of airfare. (Don’t forget the signup bonuses that come with the cards.)
A lot of these cards have weird restrictions so it’s definitely something to research.