Guiding the international student’s financial journey

Why should your institution pay attention to the way you are managing payment processes for international students? Does it really matter if they are using one provider for one part of their enrollment fees, and then have to open a bank account when they are in the country to pay for tuition and fees? Isn’t everyone OK paying by a wire transfer? And what is the real value to the school in offering an online payment experience for international students to make sure these processes are connected and modern?

Students and families look to the school as the primary source of guidance on how to fulfill their payment obligations. In our comprehensive survey of 1,000+ international students studying at six of the top business schools in France and Spain, nearly 84% said the school’s website is their go-to source for information on how to pay.

In the absence of good information, anxiety and bad information can fill the void. What became even more clear in our 10 additional qualitative, focus groups is the undue stress unclear payment processes have on students and their families, and the risk it all presents to the school as a result. Specific areas of friction include:

• Financial literacy over foreign exchange impact. They are often not familiar with the impact of FX rates on the actual amount they will need to pay.
• Fear over secure payment delivery. When they have little transparency over where a payment is, they fret over whether it will get there at all.
• How they find information to solve their problem. In the interim, they either contact their school (the go-to solution for more than half of those surveyed), family and friends (nearly ⅓), or do their own research on social media or the Internet.

That final point tips the scales of risk – beyond taxing your staff and eroding reputation. A significant number of students relied on other people or online sources of information to sort their payment questions. This can lead to issues if the information they receive is incorrect and opens the institution to, at worst, cybersecurity and fraud risk.

What do students and their families want in a payment process? There are regional and cultural differences to consider, but at a high level they want:

• Clear recommendations and information on how to pay
• Assurance that payments are delivered securely
• Flexibility to pay in their local currency using their preferred payment method, and the option to pay in instalments
• Ability to track to make sure their payments are going through correctly, with communication around payment timings and confirmations

How international students currently pay their fees, why they pay in that way, and the challenges they encounter along the way are all important to understand. From there, specific improvements can be made.

1. Foreign exchange, financial literacy spans a broad spectrum

As a broad statement, the most important thing for students and their families is that their payment is safe (42% said this was most important in making tuition payments) and cost effective (28%). To that second point, transparency in cost actually influences the perception that their payment is secure. And it allows students to budget properly.

The actual cost of making tuition fee payments often comes as a surprise to both students and their parents. Putting the onus on students and parents to research and understand the impact of exchange rates adds a layer of complexity. Many only come to the realisation of that impact after their first transaction.

Taking it a level further, schools must adapt to their unique student profile to provide the best possible payment experience. Payment preferences can differ by undergraduates/postgraduates and regional profiles, attributes that both have a great impact on student attitudes and behaviours in fee payments.

Parents are key players in the payment process having made over half of tuition fee payments in 2024. They are more likely to get involved with payments when:

• The student is an undergraduate
• The student is from the Middle East and other parts of Europe

However, they themselves may be unfamiliar with international transactions, and are removed from the process, meaning they rely on the student to pass on relevant information from their school.

2. Students, families from different countries and regions have significant differences in payment preferences, patterns

Diversity within international student populations presents a variety of payment preferences and challenges. For instance,

• Chinese students much prefer credit cards and would like access to AliPay.
• Indian students, on the other hand, do strongly prefer bank transfers but often face delays due to local banking processes.
• European students prioritise security, while Latin American students are most concerned about costs.

There are also clear differences in the options students are currently presented with and how they want to pay.

• More than a third (36%) of students were not able to use their preferred payment method or partner for their 2024 tuition fee payment.

• Students are overwhelmingly paying by bank transfer (55%), but would prefer more options, including credit card and direct debit.

Understanding the regional differences in payment preferences, decision drivers and challenges, and providing payment options to meet student expectations, schools can work to promote a positive payment process, improving how students perceive the school at the same time.

3. Do not underestimate the positive impact of clear, localised communication and support.

Confusing or unclear information was the top driver for poor payment experiences. Schools can improve this by:

• Taking the lead on advising the preferred way to pay. 84% of students and families look to the school’s website as the primary source for payment guidance.
• Clear payment instructions and communication at each step of the process. This includes quick confirmation of payment transfer and early notification of payment timing and options.
• Enhancing financial literacy. Students and families want clear explanations of transaction fees and how foreign exchange rate fluctuations may affect what they owe.
• Localised, convenient support. Families want to access customer support in their local language and time-zone.

Fee payment satisfaction was above average among those students who received an information pack from their school, reinforcing the importance of providing information that is noticed and understood by students, and is easily shared with their parents.

What happens in the absence of communication? More work for staff.

53% of students had to email their schools for clarification, which creates work internally, or rely on potentially unreliable sources like social media for guidance, introducing risk.

Recognised as the global education payments experts, thousands of institutions across the globe rely on Flywire to make it easy for international and domestic students to make tuition payments for a consistent payment experience across their payment journey.

Offer domestic and international payments on a single platform, and payment optionality in 140+ currencies across 240+ countries and jurisdictions, including bank transfer, card, digital wallet and alternative payment methods, with our proprietary global payment network.

• Offer students the option to pay online in their local currency and use their payment method of choice, with competitive rates and transparent fees.
• Collect payments for different parts of the student journey on a single platform.
• Payments settle in your institution’s bank account in your currency of choice.
• Offer the most competitive prices for bank transfers.
• Eliminate short payments because the total cost is clear to the student up front.
• Ensure best-in-class payment security.
• Provide around-the-clock multilingual payer support.

Flywire commissioned Edified to conduct an online qualitative survey of 1,072 international students across six elite business schools in Spain and France. The survey was distributed by each school in October 2024.

Edified also conducted 10 quantitative focus groups, with international students recruited from the online survey representing each of the six business schools and a broad range of student demographics, including study level, nationality and payment method. The focus groups were conducted online and in–person in November 2024.

NB. Not all questions were compulsory for participants. Results have been converted to represent 100% in this report for ease of interpretation.

Participant Demographics

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