Tuition Payment Plans for Small Schools¶
Last updated: October 7, 2026
Picture a small private academy: 60 students, one office, and the person who handles admissions also handles billing, because there is no one else to hand it to. Tuition arrives from 45 families, on 45 different mental schedules, unless the school sets the schedule itself.
A payment plan is a small number of decisions written down once: how many installments, which day of the month, what happens when a family enrolls in January instead of August, what happens when a payment is late, and how siblings are billed. Get those decisions made before the first invoice goes out, and the rest of the year runs on the plan instead of on individual negotiations.
Choosing the number of installments¶
Most small schools land on 10 or 12 installments, and each has a real tradeoff.
A 10-month plan runs August through May, matching the school calendar. Families see the payment schedule as "one per month we're in session," which is easy to explain and easy for a family to reason about against a school-year budget. The downside is a larger monthly amount, since a year of tuition is compressed into 10 payments instead of 12.
A 12-month plan spreads the same total across the calendar year, June through May or January through December depending on your billing cycle. The monthly number is smaller, which matters to some families more than the extra two months of billing. It also means a family is still paying in July, after the school year has ended, which you have to be able to explain clearly when a family asks why.
There is no universally right answer. A school with many families who budget month to month regardless of the school calendar may do better with 12. A school where most families think in school-year terms may find 10 is what families already expect. Whichever you choose, state it as one plain sentence in the enrollment agreement and again when the family sets up billing, not as a set of separate numbers a family has to add up themselves.
Setting the due date¶
Pick a single day of the month and use it for every family on every plan, for example the 1st or the 15th. Consistency matters more than which day you choose. A due date that varies by family, or that floats to "the first Monday," is the kind of small inconsistency that turns into a support question every month, from a family that is trying to remember whether this month's due date fell on a weekend.
If your families receive an ESA disbursement or a similar scholarship payment on a set day of the month, it is worth checking that day against your own due date before locking either one in. A due date a few days after the disbursement lands is easier for a family to meet than one that falls the day before.
Handling a mid-year start¶
A family who enrolls in January should not owe a full year of tuition, and your billing needs a clear rule for what they do owe. The common approach: prorate the remaining installments across the months left in the plan, so a family starting in January on a 10-month plan pays the annual tuition divided across the six months remaining, not the two-months-already-passed along with it.
Work through the arithmetic once, on paper, before the first mid-year family enrolls. If annual tuition is $4,500 on a 10-month plan, that is $450 a month. A family starting in January, with six months left in the plan, owes $4,500 divided across those six months, or $750 a month, not the original $450 stretched past the end of the school year. Decide in advance whether you will compress the payments like that or charge only the remaining $450 installments and accept less total revenue from a late-enrolling family. Either is a legitimate policy. What matters is picking one before you are explaining it to a family under time pressure.
Write the proration rule into your enrollment agreement in the same plain-sentence format as the main plan, so a family joining mid-year sees exactly what they owe and when, rather than a number that appears to have been calculated by hand and might have been.
Late payments¶
Decide your grace period and your process before the first payment is late, not during the conversation with the family whose payment is late. A short grace period, a reminder at the due date, and a personal follow-up call after a set number of days is a policy you can hold consistently across every family, which matters more than how strict or lenient the policy itself is. Families notice when the same rule applies to everyone.
Write the policy down somewhere a family can read it before they sign, not only in a staff member's memory. A family that knows the grace period and the process in advance is a family that calls your office before the due date if they are going to be short, instead of after.
Siblings¶
Picture two siblings enrolled the same year, tuition $4,500 each. One school bills them as a single combined plan, discounting the second child, say 10 percent off, and writes the whole household as one line: "Family pays $855 on the 15th, 10 times." Another school keeps each child on a fully separate plan, billed and paid independently, with no combined sentence and no discount at all. Both are workable policies.
Decide the discount, if you're offering one, before you decide the billing shape. A combined plan is easy to write once the discount is settled, but hard to unwind later if you add a discount after the fact and have to recalculate a plan that is already running. Settle the number first, then choose whether it becomes one household line or two separate ones.
How NavEd handles tuition¶
NavEd's Tuition page lets you write each family's plan as one sentence, for example "Families pay $450 on the 15th, 10 times," rather than a spreadsheet of dates and amounts. You record installments against that plan and mark them with "Record a payment" as money comes in. Parents get their own Payments page with "Pay now," receipts, and statements, so a family can see exactly what they have paid and what they owe without emailing your office to ask.
Card payments are the only method today. There is no bank transfer or ACH option yet. NavEd keeps 1 percent of the money collected, taken from your school's share, and your school can choose to pass the card processor's separate fee on to families rather than absorbing it. If a family's plan is $450, NavEd's share of that payment is $4.50. The card processor's fee is a separate line, and it is your call whether the school or the family covers it, where your state allows that choice. Some states, including California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, restrict passing a card processing fee to the customer, so NavEd only offers that option where it's legally allowed; schools in those states absorb the processor's fee instead.
Recording tuition and payments is free. The first five students are free on every plan, and that does not expire.
FAQ¶
Should a small school offer both 10-month and 12-month plans?
You can, but every option you offer is one more thing your office has to track and explain. Many small schools with one office pick a single default and only make exceptions case by case, rather than presenting every family with a menu.
How do we handle a family that starts partway through the year?
Prorate the remaining installments across the months left in your plan, and write the exact number into the enrollment agreement before the family signs, not after the first invoice goes out.
Does NavEd support bank transfer or ACH payments?
Not today. Card payments are the only method currently available on NavEd's Tuition and Payments pages.
What does NavEd charge on tuition collected?
NavEd keeps 1 percent of the money collected, from the school's share. Your school can pass along the card processor's separate fee to families, but that fee is not part of NavEd's 1 percent, and it is not available everywhere: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine restrict passing a card fee to the customer, so schools in those states absorb it instead.
Is recording tuition free, or only for paying schools?
Recording tuition and payments is part of the free plan. The first five students are free, and that does not expire.
Can we bill siblings on one combined plan?
Yes, that is a choice you make when you set up each family's plan. Some schools combine siblings into one plan sentence; others keep each child on a separate plan.
Related reading: how to price tuition and keep a microschool solvent and structuring an ESA co-pay in your billing workflow cover the pricing side of this decision. If you want to see what paid plans cost your own school, the pricing calculator works from your enrollment number.