As long as you stay current with the 10-payment plan, is your status always good to confirm you schedule on time? Do they require a certain % down payment? I plan on putting down a good initial payment so that my monthly payments are manageable. TIA
Have you seen this link?
Simply put, each payment plan works such that one pays a fee such that the cost is split into equal payments and ones bill is considered current as long as they keep making payments.
If one is considering the plan where the balance is split into two payments, you may be able to accomplish the same thing by putting it on your credit card such that you maximize the grace period. Even paying a low rate of interest (say 7%) may be more affordable than paying a fee to make “interest free” payments. Add in credit card rewards valued at 1-2% and you might be paying even less, all things considered.
After freshman year, students who wait until after they confirm their fall schedule to add a dining plan don’t have to pay for said plan until October for the fall semester, which can be stretched well into November with some credit card grace periods.
Thank you, @SEA_tide! You bring up some good things to consider.
I signed up for the Bama Plan last summer for the 2014-15 school year. I liked the idea of 10 monthly interest-free payments, because I don’t use credit cards. I cut up credit cards eight years ago - we are a cash/debit card only family these days. It worked fine the first semester, but, in case you did not know, the administrator (was Sallie Mae and now a different company) holds onto all of your payments and does not actually send your payment to the school (your June-October installments) until October (for the Fall semester.) I guess it may not matter to most, but I was now having to monitor the Bama Plan administrator’s website to make sure they were getting my payments, applying them, and sending them on to the school. Then I was monitoring the Student Billing site, as well, to make sure scholarship funds were posting and watching for the student health center charges and watching for those Bama plan payments to post (I had not realized ahead of time that they don’t send my monthly payments to the school on a monthly basis.)
So I decided to explore a simpler way, and since I was already setting aside the monthly installments in a savings account, I decided to explore the option to defer payments for the Spring semester. I cancelled the Bama plan after they sent the October payment. In December, when it was time to confirm and pay for Spring, I was offered the Deferment option, which meant I was allowed to pay half on December 7 and the other half on March 7. The deferment option costs $30, but no interest, and no other company to deal with or website to log on to. I just deal with the Student Billing website and UA billing statements. I continue to set aside the a monthly installment based on anticipated costs and when that August pay date comes for the Fall semester, then I will have the funds ready for that first deferment payment.
I do appreciate that the Bama Plan was there to help me plan for our costs (especially our first year with first son in college), though, because I did not calculate all of the actual costs in June (did not know them until he registered, and these additional costs included specific course fees and particular college fees), our Bama Plan payment was actually less than the actual payment needed to pay our account in 10 equal payments. So the Bama Plan handled some of our costs via the installment plan, but I still had additional payments to make once my son was registered and all of those extra fees are applied. And you don’t get to alter your Bama Plan after the fact, once you have the actual numbers.
Nice to have options. Sometimes I did use my Paypal Debit to pay the installment, because I did earn 1.5% cash back, and I may try to do that again - every little bit helps 