I can find only minimal information about the pros and cons of having a “Tuition Payment Plan”. Is there any type of hidden cost or fees? Anyone has any good or bad experience to share?
It varies by college. My daughter’s school charges a $50 fee for a tuition payment plan. I think my son’s school was $35 or so. It’s worth it to us to spread the payments out.
Agree, I don’t think it is a hidden cost, it’s usually a set charge, from $25 to over $100.
Agreed with both above.
A ‘con’ may be that some of the payment plans start earlier than the date ‘one time’ payment may be due. One of our schools has a due date of August 10th or so (one week before class starts), and I think the payment plan starts in July. The other school I pay doesn’t have the payment due until mid-september. That school has two plans, one with 3 payments (Sept, Oct, Nov) and one with monthly payments that I think start in August.
Another consideration is that some of the schools use a third party to collect and manage the payment plans. Dealing with a 3rd party on disputes is never fun. One child has a fairly straight forward bill and I can usually see what the credits and charges are, and match them up. The other school? Geez, I’m always trying to match up charges and credits. There are posts for tuition, room, board, and 2 fees. Five charges, easy right? Nope. They post, credit, report those five charges 3 or 4 times on every bill, sometimes dividing them (I think to pay from certain grants), then there are 9 credits for different scholarships, loans, grants, also posted, removed, reposted, plus any payments I actually make. I have no idea why. The school will estimate what Bright Futures will pay, but it isn’t posted until 3-4 weeks into the semester. Then if D adds or drops a class, the BF amount changes. Last year there was a $119 credit on her bill and I never figured out what it is for. Just a weird odd amount I couldn’t account for (found it when doing taxes). Anyway, I have enough trouble dealing with the school’s billing office. I wouldn’t want to deal with a third party.
I think most of the time it is easy to use the payment plan, and I’m sure for one child of mine it would be just that easy, but for the other? Not worth the $100 because I know there would be issues. Last summer the FA officer told me not to pay the bill on time because all the grants weren’t showing correctly and I’m not sure the third party would have waited.
Thanks for the input!!! Now I have good questions to ask the FA office.
The tuition payment plan is probably handled by the billing office/business office/bursar’s office, so I suggest directing any inquiries there. Also, there is probably information about tuition payment plan fees and procedures available on the school’s website, although it might be buried somewhere (try looking for a web page for the above named offices).
And some tuition payment plans are administered by a separate vendor. We were members of “tuition pay” for a long time!
And yes, payments started July 1. But there was an August deadline for signing up. If you signed up later than July, you just paid a couple of months as your first payment.