Visa cards no longer an option to pay tuition
Visa may be everywhere students want it to be, but starting this April, the Utah State University Cashiers Office won’t be one of those places.
Due to a large convenience fee that is associated with credit card use for tuition and fee payments, USU is changing its policy of accepting credit and debit cards for free payment.
“The issue with the convenience fee is that each year we keep going about $300,000 in the hole,” Vice President of Business and Finance Ron Godfrey said. Godfrey said the technology enhancement fee that the University Student Fee Board voted to eliminate last month offset that cost by about $80,000.
Godfrey and University Controller Clint Moffitt presented information about the change, which will take place in April, to the Associated Students of USU Tuesday.
“You’re the generation of the Internet that would rather do things on the Internet and not in person,” Moffitt said. “Everybody started using plastic to pay their fees and institutions weren’t ready for the amount of charge that was going to take on the university’s budget.”
Moffitt said credit card companies were charging the university between $300,000 and $380,000 each year in fees, 65 percent of which was from Visa cards.
Starting in April, Visa-branded credit, debit or cash cards will no longer be accepted for tuition payments, a 2 percent fee will be added to all MasterCard and Discover payments and credit and debit cards will no longer be accepted at the Cashiers Office.
“Credit will only be accepted either through the QUAD or through the voice response,” Moffitt said. The 2 percent fee is the same fee the university is being charged.
Moffitt said the reason the school is getting rid of Visa is because Visa will not let the school set a sliding fee. Visa would require the same fee to be paid by a student spending $1,500 as a student paying $500.
“If you only have a Visa card but you have a checking account, you can still pay your fees using a checking account,” Moffitt said. A Web check option can be used on the QUAD with a student entering their checking account and routing numbers. No fee is attached to that service.
“You’ll still be able to use a Visa card in any other location on campus,” Moffitt said. “This only relates to tuition and fees.”
Vice President of Student Services Juan Franco said the intent of this is to discourage students from paying with credit cards so they don’t have to pay any fees.
“We could have went to a point of not accepting credit cards at all,” Moffitt said. “That’s not a very good option.”
Moffitt said he realized that not accepting any credit cards at the Cashiers Office would create some problems, but it was the best option available. Another option considered was to create an $8 or $10 student fee to cover the credit card fees.
“Our best choice was those that choose to use it will pay for it, those that don’t will not,” he said.
Over the coming weeks, an educational campaign will be presented to students to help them become aware of the changes.
“It’s not a happy solution,” Godfrey said. “It’s the best of all the bad options.”
-str@cc.usu.edu