I really think charging education expenses (room/board/tuition) is a bad idea.
Why is it a worse idea than charging the same amount for another purpose?
For lots of reasons.
I work in education. While I'm sure OP's child did great this past fall, some students withdrew or were tossed off campus for various reasons. Once a college has your money, there is little chance you will get much (if any) of it back. There is quite a bit of "non-refundable" language in their paperwork. The deadlines for any sort of partial refunds are usually very, very early in the term, well before the date when most students will withdraw, for example. If you withdraw after their stated deadline for a refund, they don't care if it was a major medical reason, they're not giving any of the money back. But, if you didn't pay it all up front, colleges also don't work very hard at all to collect "balances due" once a student is off campus. Instead, they write it off, as they should. Why should a student or parent pay for a full semester of room, board, or education if they didn't get a full semester for whatever reason?
For example, she was right that a whole bunch of places shut down the room and board this year, in both spring and fall, and some didn't exactly refund all that money! Lots of parents have initiated lawsuits in 2020 over it. What a pain! I'd rather just not have forked over my money in the first place, and a 2.5% fee for the "convenience" of paying on a card? I hate those fees every time I see them.
