An article fromDive Brief Some colleges begin accepting tuition payments via Venmo

The peer-to-peer payment method and its PayPal parent have forged new ties with higher education institutions, the company said last week.

Published Aug. 26, 2026Lynne Marek Lead Editor

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Michigan State University, seen above, and Kansas State University are among the universities that will accept tuition payments. The image by Ken Lund is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

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Listen to the article 2 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief:

• PayPal Holdings and its peer-to-peer payment tool Venmo have integrated with three college payments technology companies to enable tuition payments to some colleges and universities, expanding their brands better known for accepting payments at merchants.
• PayPal and the Venmo app will allow tuition payments at some colleges via the college tech firms Illumia, Nelnet Campus Commerce and TouchNet Information Systems, PayPal said in a press release on Wednesday. Some of the schools accepting PayPal and Venmo payments include Butler University, Kansas State University and Michigan State University.
• “This is the first time PayPal and Venmo are directly integrated with a school's payment portal where students and parents now have the option to pay for tuition using Venmo or PayPal,” a PayPal spokesperson said by email.

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College students and other young people have gravitated to Venmo for years, but PayPal has sought more recently to expand its use cases. PayPal’s former CEO, Alex Chriss, talked about how his sons used the payment tool at college. But it hasn’t had the technological connection to the learning institutions such that it could be used to make tuition payments.

The latest integrations with Illumia, Nelnet and the Global Payments subsidiary TouchNet provided a pathway for allowing the PayPal and Venmo payments. The three college tech companies provide services to thousands of universities and colleges across the country, according to the release.

“For Venmo or PayPal to be used for this type of payment to commercial entities, it needs to be available on their formal checkout pages,” the PayPal spokesperson explained. 

Some of the colleges and universities are live now with the new payment options, including capabilities for the payments to be made on a cross-border basis, the spokesperson said.

PayPal’s efforts to make its payments technology available in more settings, and specifically in the realm of higher education, is a continuation of a strategy started under Chriss. Now, the San Jose, California-based company is carrying those plans on under the company’s new CEO, Enrique Lores, who took the post in March.

Last year, PayPal said it would begin processing payments for the Big Ten and Big 12 collegiate sports conferences in a bid to handle more student athlete payments and spending on campuses. The company said at that time that it was eyeing more services with respect to tuition payments.

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• PayPal lines up Big Ten, Big 12 tiesPayments Dive

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