Students at a small group of universities can now pay tuition and fees through PayPal or Venmo, a move that is being framed as bringing consumer payment options into higher education billing.
The rollout runs through three campus commerce platforms: Illumia, formerly Transact and CBORD; Nelnet Campus Commerce; and TouchNet, a Global Payments company. Rather than building a standalone system, the integrations place PayPal and Venmo inside the payment portals colleges already operate, appearing alongside existing card options at checkout. Nelnet Campus Commerce says it works with more than 1,100 higher education institutions.
The option is live at a first wave of schools that includes Bellarmine University, Butler University, Kansas State University, Michigan State University and Texas Tech University. PayPal said it expects additional institutions to activate the feature over the coming year.
Students and families can fund payments from linked bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, or their PayPal and Venmo balances. PayPal said payers cannot use PayPal Credit or Buy Now, Pay Later financing for tuition through the integrations. The change applies to bursar charges billed directly on a school’s portal and does not cover student loan payments, which run through third-party servicers.
Universities, not students, pay the transaction fees PayPal charges, though several schools pass a service fee to payers. Michigan State applies a 2.75% service fee on tuition paid through the apps, the same fee it charges for debit cards, credit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and one that payers can avoid by paying by electronic check from a bank account. Kansas State charges 2.95% on domestic card-funded payments and 4.25% on international cards, with a $3 minimum on transactions above $20.
The apps carry different consumer protections than bank accounts. PayPal and Venmo are not banks, and balances held in the apps are not covered by FDIC deposit insurance, which protects against a bank or credit union failure rather than the failure of a nonbank company. PayPal said tuition transactions include encryption and fraud monitoring.
The tuition integrations follow PayPal’s agreements a year earlier with the Big Ten and Big 12 Conferences covering revenue-share payments to student athletes. Citing a forthcoming report, PayPal said 94% of Gen Z survey respondents reported using a payment app weekly.
