Students of the University of Wyoming will now pay a convenience fee if they pay their tuition with a credit card.
As of June 1, any payments made with credit cards will be subjected to a fee of 2.75 percent in addition to the total cost of tuition, according to a university press release.
Aaron Courtney, the assistant manager for financial services at UW, talked about the situation surrounding this change in policy.
“We’re actually in the process of implementing a new cashiering system–billing system, payment solution, you know, the whole ecommerce type of thing,” Courtney said. “With that switch, we’re moving towards a third-party invoicer. They’re the ones that actually collect the credit card information, charge the student and then remit payment back to us.”
This new cashiering system, called TouchNet, offers more payment options than HigherOne did, Courtney said.
“Now, there are free options for students,” Courtney said. “Just because there’s a 2.75 percent convenience fee on credit cards, we still want to be able to offer a free electronic version as well. Something that we didn’t have with HigherOne is we now will have the ability to do [direct withdrawals] from a checking or a savings account, free of cost, for students and parents.”
The University of Wyoming paid the credit card convenience fee on behalf of students in years past, Courtney said. With HigherOne, the fee was roughly 2.5 to 2.75 percent.
“I can’t give you an exact dollar amount, but if you think about the number of credit card transitions that go through the University of Wyoming, it’s a six digit figure each year,” Courtney said. “That could be spent on higher education. We really want to put it towards teaching, research.”
The switch to TouchNet brings other changes in terms of university bill payment.
“They definitely offer a more robust solution for students, gives more options for payment, much nicer billing cycle, much more bill presentable,” Courtney said. “So we’re looking at that kind of from a student perspective.”
With this move there will no longer be any Cowboy Cards issued to students and the HigherOne ATMs on campus will be removed from campus in July.
“This a bit of a more streamlined process. Most of our students that come to UW are already banking with a home bank, whether it’s Wells Fargo or somewhere back home. We’ve realized that they already have that set up; they don’t necessarily need the Cowboy Card. They only chose it a lot of times because it’s a quick way to get their money. With TouchNet, we’re able to offer direct deposit into that existing bank account that students are coming to college with.”
There have not been any student opinions opposing any of these changes, Courtney said.
“We knew we were in the right path for the past several years when, at freshman orientation, parents are asking ‘do you charge a convenience fee,’” Courtney said. “They’re used to it, whether they have a kid at a different university or college, most colleges are moving to this model. So, we knew that people understood it was out there and they were expecting it.”
Laura Barrett, a senior in the theatre department at UW, said she disagrees with the addition of the fee.
“I feel like we pay enough as students,” Barrett said. “They ask enough money from us for our education. We’re already going to be in so much debt by the time we graduate and they’re just going to tack on a little bit more when we’re already scraping the bottom of our bank account to pay for what we’re being charged. And, the only way we have to pay, right now, is through credit cards or debit cards or a card of some sort. Nobody has that kind of cash.”
Brian Hill, an undeclared freshman, has a full ride scholarship to UW and also takes issue with this new convenience fee.
“It’ll definitely affect students,” Hill said. “Some people are struggling to get by right now, so it’ll be hard to do that when they have to pay even more money. I don’t think they should do this, I think they should keep it the way it is.”
