<p>I really wish I could charge DD’s tuition to get the Costco cash rebates, but the convenience fee defeats the purpose. Can’t have my cake and eat it :)</p>
<p>Moddanum I’ve looked. It’s $20/semster. Regardless of how you pay (lump sum or dp), there’s an additional fee for paying onlie via credit card (which my parents pay and which I wouldn’t have to if I were on campus).</p>
<p>Ugh! Some of these plans sound so attractive. D’s school charges a $55 enrollment fee and 3% convenience fee regardless of whether you use a credit card or automatic deduction from your checking account. Those are the only two options. Interest rates on short term vehicles like CDs and money market accounts are nowhere near 3% right now.</p>
<p>We used the installment plan for all four years of son’s college tuition by necessity not by choice but I have nothing but good things to say about it. The plan his school has is through Tuition Management Systems and the fee was about $60-70 for the year. The best thing is that it enabled us to handle unexpected expenses that came up. Sophmore year, son decided at last minute to sign up for winter term abroad. This increased his tuition by a few thousand dollars which we would have had to come up with in one lump sum before the term but since we were enrolled in the installment plan the school allowed us to divide that increase by the remaining months in the plan. Senior year, son intended to live off campus but couldn’t find an opening until winter term and ended up in the dorms for the fall term. Again, instead of having to immediately come up with the additional $$$ right away, we were able to spread that increase out over the entire 8 months remaining in the plan. There was no additional charge for making changes in the installment plan and all it took was a simple phone call.</p>
<p>We also use TMS and they have three options - 8, 9. or 12 month. We’ve used the 8 month option and paid three larger installments Sept-Nov, then five smaller installments Dec-April. They cover a lot of schools - there’s a drop down function on their web site to see if your school is covered. The actual address is afford dot com.</p>
<p>No Downside!! We’ve been members of “TuitionPay” since 2003. This year, DD’s college is switching to Tuition Management Services…so we’ll “join” that one. It just works better for us to parcel out the money one month at a time for ten months than to write checks for each term. We do it using auto withdrawal from one of our bank accounts. My understanding is that TMS is going to be a $60 fee.</p>
<p>Our reenrollment fee from Tuition Management Systems is $105.00 this year. Maybe it varies by school?</p>
<p>orangeone - yes, it does seem to vary; checked a few different schools on the TMS site. It’s still $70 for us luckily.</p>