COLLEGES ADD CONVENIENCE FEE FOR USING CREDIT CARD

PITTSBURGH—Not a lot of people pay college tuition bills with a credit card. But some do—whether for convenience or to get those nice rewards points.

Colleges didn’t always charge a “convenience fee” for people who pay their bills with credit cards. But in recent years the number of families using credit cards started to add up to a point where colleges say they can no longer afford to absorb the transaction cost.

People who pay tuition bills with a credit card incur an average “convenience fee” of 2.62 percent, according to a new CreditCards.com report, which surveyed 300 of the largest U.S. public, private and community colleges. That translates to $262 for every $10,000 of tuition.

Community colleges are the most fee-friendly. Out of the 100 largest community colleges surveyed, 97 percent accept credit cards for tuition payment and only 8 percent of them charge convenience fees. By contrast, 93 percent of public universities and 77 percent of private institutions that accept credit cards charge convenience fees.

CreditCards.com, based in Austin, Texas, conducted a survey in 2014 and another one earlier this year which found the number of colleges accepting credit cards fell 260 to 255. However, the number of schools charging a convenience fee went up from 142 in 2014 to 145 this year.

“It doesn’t surprise me more schools are charging the fees simply because they don’t want to eat the cost of those credit card transactions,” said Matt Schulz, senior industry analyst at CreditCards. com. “The number of schools not accepting credit cards probably stopped doing so because the population of students using cards was not high enough to make it worthwhile.”