Frequently asked questions – payments

As you may know, the State of Arizona budget challenges have affected public universities.  In our effort to keep costs down, we have had to change credit card payment policies for student account charges.

Currently, we pay a fee for each credit card payment we receive. This adds up to over $700,000 per year in fees for tuition payments, and costs continue to rise. The service fee you pay will benefit both you and other students by allowing the university to use these funds for academic programs and services.

• Visa
• MasterCard
• Discover Card
• American Express
• JCB

Instead of writing a check from your personal checking account, you can process one electronically. You will need your bank account number and routing number, located on the bottom of your personal check.

Debit cards are treated like credit cards and charged a service fee.

• electronic check: because we understand that you need payment options, the university will continue to allow you to pay by eCheck with no service fee charge. To make an eCheck payment enter your bank account and routing numbers (you can find these on one of your personal checks) into the secure payment page, and the funds will be subtracted from your bank account within 1-2 days.
• cash
  • in person at the Flagstaff campus university cashier window (in the Gammage Building) between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
• check
  • in person at the Flagstaff campus university cashier window (in the Gammage Building) between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
  • at the Student Service Center located on central campus in building #60 between 8am and 5pm.
  • by mail: payable to Northern Arizona University; please write the student’s name and ID number on the memo line of the check.

eCheck payments can be made from US checking accounts in US dollars. Checks issued from money market accounts, credit card companies, mutual funds, brokerage accounts, home equity, or other lines of credit cannot be processed as an eCheck. These types of checks will still be accepted by mail or in person.

No. A third-party company charges the service fee. It will not appear on your student account or university bill.  Your receipt will show the payment amount, the amount of the service fee, and the total amount paid.

Two separate transactions will appear on your credit card statement: one for the student account payment and one for the service fee.

No, credit card payments cannot be made over the phone or via mail. This is a security measure to make sure your payment information stays private.

While you can’t pay with a credit card at the cashier window, there are computer workstations near the cashier’s office in Flagstaff where you can make an online payment using Visa, MasterCard, Discover Card, or American Express. At our other campus locations, you can pay online at a terminal in the office.

According to credit card rules, service fees must be charged for all payment types for a given payment location. If we allowed credit card payments at the cashier’s window, we would also have to add the service fee to check and cash transactions. To help keep costs down for our students, we moved all credit card payment processing to a third-party credit card processor.

Yes. Many colleges and universities both within and outside of Arizona have already made similar changes regarding credit card payments.