As if paying triple in tuition what students ponied up 10 years ago isn't enough (along with an additional 8 percent hike for next year), UCLA students who cover their tabs with credit cards will be slapped with another fee:

A 2.75 percent “convenience fee,” the university says. And, well, isn't that convenient?

What UCLA is claiming in a statement this week is that it's passing on credit-card companies' procession fees to students. Do the companies allow that?

Actually, Visa doesn't, and for that reason UCLA is dropping it. Plastic payers can only use Master Card, Discover and American Express, because that's what all students carry in their pockets.

UCLA:

Credit card companies charge the university and others who accept credit cards an interchange fee to process credit card transactions, and UCLA has been absorbing that cost for more than 15 years.

The change will save the campus more than $6.5 million a year while allowing the university to continue to offer the convenience of payment via credit card to those who choose that method without requiring all students to subsidize the option, said Marsha Lovell, UCLA's director of Student Financial Services.

So go on, get your lovely Discover cards, kids. You know you want to.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

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