About
Kent State University is a public research university classified by the Carnegie Foundation among institutions with the highest research activity. The university operates eight campuses across Northeast Ohio, a College of Podiatric Medicine, and academic sites in New York City, Geneva, and Florence.
The Kent Campus enrolls nearly 27,000 students, with a further 12,000+ students across regional campuses. Approximately 1,650 international students from nearly 100 countries study at Kent State, supported by more than 300 undergraduate and graduate programs across 11 academic colleges.
The Challenge
As international enrolment continued to grow across higher education prior to 2022, many universities found that the systems used to collect tuition had not kept pace. Cross border payments often arrive through fragmented channels, creating manual work for finance teams and uncertainty for students and families.
Kent State University faced the same challenge, as international payments became increasingly complex and time consuming to manage at scale.
Before implementing TransferMate through Illumia, Kent State’s approach to international payments placed a significant administrative burden on its finance and bursar teams.
International payments required manual reconciliation, pulling reports, matching transactions to bank deposits, and posting payments individually within the system. Each step introduced room for delay or error. Refunds were even more challenging, involving paperwork-heavy workflows and extensive follow-up.
“The two most obvious challenges were really administrative. Having to pull reports, match them up to payments received, and then post those manually, there was room for error on all levels of that,” said Betsy Tierney, Manager, Cashiering at Kent State University.
From a student's perspective, the experience was fragmented. International students were often directed to an external payment portal to complete their payments, leading to confusion and miscommunication about payment status.
“The disconnect between those two systems made an already complicated process even more difficult. It wasn’t beneficial for anyone.”
The Solution
Kent State University introduced TransferMate as an embedded international payment option within the Illumia Payments Platform, enabling international tuition and fee payments to be initiated and completed inside the university’s existing student payment portal.
Rather than sending students to a separate system, TransferMate appears as another payment method within Illumia, aligned with Kent State’s broader strategy of keeping billing, invoices, and payment activity in one place. This consolidation was critical.
As Betsy explains, “We’ve integrated so many things with Illumia to make all of this information available within one portal for students. We do electronic billing, dynamic bills… all of that is within one portal. Being able to have our international students make that payment selection there instead of sending them someplace else is next level.”
For students, this removed uncertainty around where and how to pay. There’s no redirect, no unfamiliar interface, and no doubt about whether they are on an official Kent State payment page.
“It’s clear where they’re paying and what options they have, because it’s all in the same payment portal.”
From an operational standpoint, payments made through TransferMate flow directly into Illumia and post automatically to the student account. This eliminated the need for teams to download reports, manually match transactions to bank deposits, or key data into the system; a process that had previously absorbed a significant amount of staff time.
“The time spent retrieving payments, posting payments, and reconciling them. It’s gone.”
Crucially, international payments now align with Kent State’s existing domestic workflows. Once a payment closes, staff do not need to treat it differently based on its origin.
“There’s no distinction between domestic and international payments, really. There’s no additional work that we have to do to reconcile those payments.”
Refunds were also simplified. Instead of heavy manual processes, staff can initiate refunds directly from the transaction record with a single action, returning the payment to the account of origin.
“For us, it’s going to the original transaction and basically selecting a refund button. No paperwork involved.”
TransferMate manages the follow-up verification with the student, reducing administrative involvement while maintaining security and compliance.
Taken together, the Illumia and TransferMate integration allowed Kent State to modernize international payments without adding complexity, improving the student experience while freeing a small payments team to focus on higher value work.
The Results
For Kent State’s finance and payments teams, the value of the solution is felt most clearly in how it frees up limited resources. And that impact was significant enough to change how international payments are managed compared to their previous payment process.
“We have a very small unit that deals with payments. These changes have allowed us to increase efficiencies to the point that we can focus on things we wouldn’t have been able to spend energy on before.”
The Final Word
“With TransferMate, the time spent retrieving payments, posting payments, and reconciling them. It’s gone. It has absolutely been a value add for us.” - Beth Mandl, Coordinator, Cashering Systems, Kent State University
Get in touch with our team to enable TransferMate in Illumia and reduce costs, manual work, and payment friction for your institution and international students today.
