USC Students Won't Be Able to
Charge Their Education

COLUMBIA, S.C.
Forget about those frequent-flier miles and car discounts you rack up when you pay USC tuition by credit card. After the 1998-99 school year, the university won't take credit anymore, administrators decided Tuesday.

About a quarter of USC student pay tuition by credit card, university records show. That amounted to about $30 million of $128 million in 1997.

But it costs too much to administer such payments, says USC finance chief John Finan. It costs about $500,000 per school year, and each year costs $50,000 more than the year before, he says.

"An awful lot of schools in the United States have stopped accepting credit cards," Finan says. "You either have to raise tuition to cover it, or you do something else."

University officials had thought about contracting with a private company to administer credit card receipts. (Wachovia now does it for 1.67 percent of tuition proceeds.)

Administrators also considered handling credit card receipts in-house, perhaps attaching a "cover charge" for those paying by credit. By law, USC can't charge credit card users a different rate from those who pay by cash, check or electronic funds transfer.

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Continued from Previous Column"(An added fee) passes on the cost of the credit card to the people that are using it," Finan says. "Right now, you're spreading that cost over everybody."

Administrators haven't decided what the fee will be, only that they'll impose it in the fall, said spokesman Russ McKinney.

Finan says he's not worried that students strapped for cash will have trouble if they can't use credit cards. The university allows deferred payments.

"You've got two types of people that use the credit card people with financial problems that can't come up with the cash, (and) others that simply want the frequent-flyer things ...," Finan says. "(But) I'm not too concerned that we have some poor students that they're going to get knocked out of the ability of going to school."

© Knight-Ridder Newspapers, 1998

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This page last updated 09/08/98.

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