Bentley University in Waltham is now one of the first higher education institutions in the Bay State to embrace cryptocurrency as a payment option for tuition.
According to the private, business-focused university, educators can now pay their graduate and undergraduate tuition using Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the stablecoin USD Coin. The new method of payment is made accessible thanks to an agreement with Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform (Nasdaq: COIN).
Bentley also intends to take such cryptocurrency as treats and donations.
Bentley, according to an emailed statement, wishes to offer students and their families the choice of paying tuition with Bitcoin, which is already used by more than 200 million people worldwide.
Bentley’s endorsement of bitcoin makes perfect sense because it’s a technology that’s transforming the global economy, which our students will eventually enter, according to the statement.
Bentley responded that Coinbase “is a professional cryptocurrency platform that uses multi-factor verification and other security procedures to keep funds secure” when asked about the precautionary measures he put in place to avoid being cheated when receiving crypto payments.
Bentley students have revealed a higher involvement in bitcoin, and the Bentley Blockchain Association was established, according to Bentley, as one of the first student-led blockchain clubs in the country.
Bentley University notes on its website that for tuition payments in international currencies, it collaborates with Boston-based Flywire Corp. (Nasdaq: FLYW), which came out publicly last year. USD Coin, one of the cryptocurrencies Bentley intends to accept, was created in cooperation with Coinbase by another local crypto firm, Circle Internet Financial Ltd.
‘Not quite there yet,’ says the narrator.
Other Boston-area universities do not currently offer students the choice of paying tuition using cryptocurrency and have no plans to do so in the coming days.
In response to a comment on whether Brandeis University will follow Bentley’s lead, Julie Jette, assistant vice president for communications, wrote, “We are not there yet.” Tufts University’s administrator verified via email that the university has no intentions to accept cryptocurrency as payment for tuition.
Requests for comment were not returned by Boston University, Northeastern University, Harvard University, MIT, or Suffolk University.
A rising number of colleges and universities around the country are beginning to accept cryptocurrency for both donations and student fees.
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania became the first Ivy League college to accept cryptocurrencies as payment for a new blockchain degree program last fall. The University of California, Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon University are among the organizations that have acknowledged accepting cryptocurrency donations.
Outside of schooling, coffee shops and restaurants, including Starbucks Corp. (Nasdaq: SBUX), are joining early adopters like Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) in taking crypto, notably Bitcoin, for some payments. Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) was the one to launch its own cryptocurrency, Amazon Coins, in 2013.