<p>I was considering charging my daughters's tuition on my Discover card (so I write the check to discover instead of the college and get 1% cash back). This is not any kind of a loan - I have the money to pay the bill - I am not getting financial aid - I am using my own savings.</p>
<p>I checked with Discover and they say there is no restriction for tuition on their cashback program. I checked Northeastern's finance page and they say there is no additional charge for paying by credit card. </p>
<p>The one thing I might need to do is up my credit limit or maybe go on a quarterly or monthly plan for the tuition (which my credit limit would allow).</p>
<p>The question is - has anybody done this - anything I am overlooking?</p>
<p>I found the college monthly payment plan, in which payments were automatically deducted from a checking acct. , was far easier to administer . No worries about using up the available credit on a card. And these days, it may not be easy to get your credit limit upped, given all the new bank regulations.</p>
<p>You are lucky that the school doesn’t charge an extra fee for payment by cc. Most schools do, so whatever savings or miles you would accrue are sort of cancelled out by the extra fees. On that note, I would compare the cash back bonus to how much more you would be paying if you go to a monthly plan. But if there are no additional charges, sounds like the cash back bonus is the way to go.</p>
<p>According to Northwestern’s website, although they do not charge any fee for accepting credit cards, the processing company they use charges 2.75%. There is no such thing as a free lunch.</p>
<p>One of my friends took night classes at USC. As of then, there was no surcharge. They also got reimbursed for the class as long as they were able to get a B- or better. Her reward points pretty much paid for the books and parking the employer wouldn’t cover.</p>
<p>I loved the idea, but my kids’ colleges charged, I believe either 2.5% or 3%, which wasn’t worth it. But sure, I would have done in in a heartbeat if no incremental charge. Why not get a few free tickets?</p>
<p>My mistake, Northeastern does have a good deal for those using credit cards. There still is no free lunch, because Northeastern itself must be eating the cost charged by the credit card company, which is typically 2-3%.</p>
<p>For our kids at USoCal, we paid whatever the U would let us on our CC (tuition, fees, University housing, etc.). We did get our credit limit increased so it would work. Another way to pay without having a credit limit increase is pay over several days (e.g. pay via CC on the 1st, check to be sure it was posted, call in to pay off the CC balance on the as soon as it has posted. Next day, pay again & repeat until you’ve paid for the entire term.</p>
<p>We have used the payment plan (at USC it costs $40/term & allows you to break payments into 5 equal payments, August-Dec 1 & in the spring, Jan-May 1. </p>
<p>We generally try to use a CC that will get us 2% cash back like the CapitolOne Spark Visa. The 2% is better than we’re getting from most other sources.</p>
<p>It is a good idea to double-check with the cashier’s or bursar’s office to be sure there isn’t some fee before you move ahead with your plan.</p>
<p>Our kids’ schools accepted Discover Card with no fees. Did son’s full undergrad + most of his grad school with Discover Card and all of daughter’s undergrad to date. Yes, I did bump up the credit limit to accommodate. You get an extra month to pay along with the rewards.</p>
<p>We figured we might as well get whatever % discount we could via our charge card refunds and am glad we got 2% back on many of our charges for our kids’ tuition, fees and university housing. </p>
<p>My sister has never been allowed to charge any of her kids tuition out of the 6 different schools they have attended–there was a fee or they simply didn’t accept credit cards.</p>
<p>Do it if you can but I think most colleges aren’t willing to accept the CCs for tuition or housing without charging you an additional fee because they have to pay a surcharge to accept the CC which would cost them on their bottom line. If the college you’re paying for accepts it without the extra ‘processing fee’ to you then do it while you can. Make sure you read the fine print on the college’s website.</p>
<p>But if they let you do this and they’ll take AmEx then get a Costco AmEx card which gives 2% cash back or get a Visa/MC card which will pay cash back higher than the 1% Discover one.</p>
<p>Costco AmEx only gives 1% back on most purchases–2% on “travel” and 3% on gas. The only card I have now that allows 2% flat rate on everything is the CapitolOne Spark Business Visa card.</p>
<p>^^ You’re right. I don’t suppose they’d consider ‘going’ to college as ‘travel’ ;)</p>
<p>However, Discover is graduated in what it pays with 1% kicking in at $3K I believe.</p>
<p>It’s worth shopping around for the card with the best cash back plan for this particular use case of paying tuition/housing since when it comes to the details of how they pay it back it can make a difference. For example, some plans have a cap on what they’ll pay back - for example, $500/yr max.</p>
<p>The first step is to see if the college really will accept the CC sans a processing fee.</p>
<p>It’s best to really move on this if you plan to get new CC for charging, as it can take a bit of time before it is received. We have charged all sorts of things on our CC, as mentioned above, including new van, photovoltaic system and much, much more. It has worked well for us but it IS important to check out the details of the card–any fees, maximum you can receive. So far, on our Capitol One card, we have earned over $900 in 7 months and expect to earn another few thousand before the end of 12 months, partly from charges for tuition, partly other charges.</p>
<p>Our H’s employer lets him charge post-tax contributions to his retirement account on CC, so we use our CC for that as well.</p>
<p>Yes! As a matter of fact, I have been doing this for the past few years at the very same university you want to do it at. There is no extra fee for using a credit card to pay tuition. (I get a 2% rebate deposit into my 529 account for using my Fidelity Mastercard, so it is like getting a mini discount on the tuition.) Other terms I pay using the 529 account.</p>
<p>We pay all expenses possible for college on our CC and get 1% cash back. If we wait till we have at least $300 in rewards before cashing in, we get a 25% reward bonus. Last time I cashed in $300, I had a $75 credit on my account. Sweet deal! USC does not charge to use a CC. If you pay monthly, there is a $50 fee to set that up per semester.</p>
<p>There are costs to the university with whichever form of payment you use and one advantage of a credit card is that it can be processed without any human intervention.</p>