You can Venmo your college tuition, for some reason
PayPal and Venmo have partnered with education payment platforms to allow students to pay college tuition directly through their apps. The move aims to provide more flexibility for students, though it has drawn criticism for normalizing large debt payments on casual peer-to-peer platforms.
Why it matters
This reflects the increasing integration of fintech into essential life services and the potential psychological impact of gamified payment interfaces.
College is a constellation of Venmo requests — your roommate’s cut of the utilities, your half of an Uber ride, the ticket to your friend’s a capella performance that you don’t actually want to go to. On Wednesday, Venmo’s parent company PayPal announced that you will now be able to use its services to pay your tuition.
Venmo and PayPal are partnering with the education payment platforms Illumia, Nelnet Campus Commerce, and TouchNet, which collectively serve thousands of colleges and universities, giving students and families another way to pay their tuition.
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