Why You Should Accept Sponsor Payments

Higher education institutions face a range of challenges when it comes to tuition payments, including late payments, default payments, and administrative inefficiencies. To address these issues and better serve their students, many higher education institutions are offering sponsor payments as a payment method for tuition.

This method allows institution to offer students the ability to have their tuition payments covered by a third-party sponsor, such as an employer or government agency. This can include military and veterans benefits, corporate tuition benefit programs, and more. By offering sponsors the ability to receive bills and make payments, and using an automated billing solution like Sponsor Billing and Payments from Nelnet Campus Commerce, to manage those bills and payments, higher education institutions can streamline their payment processing and benefit in a number of ways.

Offering sponsors the ability to make payments eliminates the need for students to handle the payment process, reducing the administrative burden for the institution. Since the billing and payment process is handled by the sponsor, it can free up valuable staff time that can be redirected to other important tasks. Also, the automation of the billing and payment process using a solution made for sponsor payments, can streamline processes, reduce errors, and improve overall efficiency within the Business Office.

By partnering with sponsors, institutions can make education more accessible and affordable to students, which in turn, can potentially increase enrollment and revenue. This not only brings in more money, but it can also lead to greater stability and predictability in revenue streams. Additionally, institutions can build strong relationships with sponsoring companies and organizations, which can lead to increased support and funding, helping the institution to grow its revenue over time.

Students who are sponsored by their employers or other organizations are more likely to be satisfied with their educational experience. They may even be more likely to refer other students to the institution. By offering the payment option of sponsor billing and payments, institutions can provide a valuable service to their students by letting them focus on their studies, rather than worrying about tuition payments and incurring debt.

Institutions that manage sponsor payments and use an automated payment solution can gather and analyze data more effectively and can reduce the risk of human error, while increasing the accuracy of their financial data. Since automated billing and payment systems can generate detailed financial reports, institutions can keep track of their income and expenses more effectively. Furthermore, by providing sponsors with clear, detailed billing and payment information, institutions can improve the transparency of their financial operations and build trust with sponsors.

At Nelnet, our Sponsor Billing and Payments solution provides a self-service system for the tuition sponsors to view their account status and billing statements, as well as make payments with various payment methods all online. This can help free the institutions up from dealing with manual bill generation, payments, and reconciliation. Both secure and modern, our system significantly reduces manual work for sending bills to sponsors, integrates fully with major ERPs, and is a better way to preform reconciliation. By utilizing our solution, higher education institutions can better serve their sponsors and sponsored students, and position themselves for success in the future.

Learn more about Nelnet Billing & Payments

Read our case study on Relay Graduate School of Education and their success with payment plans