platform fee for tuition payments made via autodebit via Credit card, or bank account starting in September 2024

Judy Baccile

My school has over 900 students and 85% are on the 10 pay plan and pay via auto debit through their credit card, checking account or savings accounts. At the end of last week, we were notified by BBTM starting in September all payments processed by BBTM via credit card, checking accounts or saving accounts will now be accessed an additional fee called a platform fee. BBTM said the only way not to have the platform fee assessed is to mail in payments, mail in bill pay payments or have the school process all of the payments??? are you kidding me. It takes 14 business days for BBTM to process payments…are you added resources to assist with the additional check payments? Or will you be collecting more late fees due to your slow processing system? Are you creating another revenue stream of income by over assessing our families and adding a platform fee??? The response I received was for the school to process the payments from the families??? No! This is why I chose Smart Tuition years ago. Please provide a response. Thank You, Judy Baccile

Jacqueline Crate

@Judy Baccile We have a similar size school with about 90% of our families on autopay either through a checking/savings account or credit card. The remaining 10% pay by check in school and we were getting ready to draft communication that they also needed to have autopay enabled. Needless to say, we felt very blindsided by the BBTM notification last week. I researched other schools in our region and nearly almost all are utilizing FACTS for tuition management and financial aid. We've been with BBTM and BBFAM for 7 years now and I think the time to transition to FACTS has come.

Judy Baccile

@Jacqueline Crate-Thanks for your prompt and supportive response of the excessive fees being charged by BBTM to our families. I failed to mention an additional response/suggestion I received from BBTM on how to handle the platform fee for our families…BBTM suggested our school could absorb the platform fees instead of the families. There was no mention of BBTM absorbing any of the platform fees, only us. This platform fee is infuriating and frustrating. It is time for me to look for another option.

Gabrielle Schneider

@Judy Baccile Yes blindsided by the sudden additional fees. We have over 860 students and we require that they all pay via automatic withdrawal. Many of the families have selected to pay via their bank accounts to avoid the credit card fees. The whole advantage of Tuition Management is that it is integrated with Enrollment Management.

Just curious how other schools handle enrollment contracts if using FACTS or any other billing management.

Mark Davis 2

@Judy Baccile, @Gabrielle Schneider, and @Jacqueline Crate

Thank you for your feedback regarding our Blackbaud Tuition Management platform fee and the discussion here. We hear your concerns and know the timing of this change isn’t ideal and comes as many of you are preparing for the upcoming academic year. Please know that we did not take the decision to implement the fees or the timing lightly and my teams worked as hard as we could to notify our schools as soon as we could. Ultimately, the timing of the decision was driven by new state-level regulations impacting our business.

We considered many options on how to navigate the continuously changing regulatory environment regarding digital transaction fees, including gathering feedback from some of our customers and families. In response to a recent proliferation of state laws regulating credit card surcharging (including New York state law S.1048A passed February of 2024) and the significant uncertainty about how these and pending similar laws will be applied, Blackbaud decided that it was necessary to change the way we describe and assess fees for payments through our platform. In addition, we needed to respond to the increasing costs and resources necessary to deliver a safe, secure, and reliable solution for you and your parents

One key point I want to clarify is that the Platform Fee structure is intended to cover or replace related costs of providing our product and services across all digital payment methods. More specifically:

• The Platform Fee remains unchanged for credit cards and simply replaces the previous credit card usage fee in the product.
• • The Platform Fee for ACH payments is 1.0% + $.30 per transaction, with a maximum of $2.50 per transaction. The $2.50 cap applies for any transaction of $220 or more. We defined the fee to cap the cost for larger tuition payments while minimally covering our costs for smaller incidental transactions the system processes on behalf of your parents.

Our Parent Contact Center is prepared to directly address any parent concerns; understanding that many parents will reach out to your teams directly. Please review Knowledgebase article: What is the Blackbaud Tuition Management Platform Fee? as it contains more detailed questions and answers.

In the last year, we have nearly tripled our R&D investment in Blackbaud Tuition Management to accelerate improvements and innovation for your school and your families while also sustaining our security and compliance posture. While we have already started accelerating innovation delivered in Tuition Management, more is coming as we will highlight in the next Product Update Briefing.

We value our continued partnerships with you and welcome your continued feedback.

Mark Davis
VP, Head of Education Products

Jacqueline Crate

@Gabrielle Schneider We moved away from Blackbaud Enrollment Management a few years ago (but retained BBTM) and have it as a checklist item on our new platform for families to create their BBTM tuition account online. It was a fairly simple process and we cross check the accounts to ensure nothing is overlooked.

Jacqueline Crate

@Mark Davis Thank you for taking the time to add your feedback on the discussion. I completely understand the investment in R&D improvements, and although the new platform fee structure was a shock, the biggest surprise was the lack of advance communication. For example, the communication that informed schools that there would be an increased fee of 3.12% on credit card payments was sent 9/13/23 with an effective date of 1/9/24. The same communication also indicated that the family fee would increase to $56 effective for the 2024-25 school year. The recent communication sent 7/18 indicates families will be notified 8/13, which is less than a 30 day notice for us on a school level, with the actual fee to be effective 9/4/24. I'm not sure how long the new platform fee structure has been under review by Blackbaud (it sounds like there may have been some comprehensive research and consideration), but the lack of advance communication for us on a school level has left me pretty frustrated as this point, especially as someone who has worked diligently to get the majority of our families on autopay through BBTM. It has been very counterproductive and perhaps in the future, more advanced communication of this type of fee structure would be appropriate.

Judy Baccile

@Mark Davis-Good Morning. When I logged into BBTM this morning, I found a banner going across the top of the page stating" ACH bank transfer payments will not be assessed an ACH Platform form until the 2025-2026 school session." Please explain this update. I wanted to make sure I understand the change. Fortunately, our Finance Office was in the process of our annual external audit and was consumed with the audit process, otherwise I would have sent a “heads up” email to all of our families of the new BBTM Platform fee.

When is BBTM emailing the families to let them know of the new platform fee?

Please provide a date for when there will be an ACH Platform fee. 85% of our families will start to pay their 25-26 school year payments in May 2025. Will the ACH platform fee start then or July 1 2025?

Thanks,

Judy Baccile

Jennifer Judd

@Judy Baccile we are still beyond frustrated with the change! Not having an option for our families to pay without being charged a fee is unacceptable. The additional work load it will create on our office for having to process in-house payments eliminates the need for Blackbaud! When will the increases and charges stop?!?!