Halifax — Students who are accustomed to the swipe now, pay later approach to tuition payments may have to re-think their finances this fall as more Canadian universities eliminate the option of paying with credit cards.

Universities say they want to trim the transaction fees they pay to financial institutions.

Most schools are putting the money they save into their operating budgets, while others are directing the savings towards specific projects like bursaries for first-year students.

Alan Shaver — a vice-president at Dalhousie University in Halifax — says the school will stop processing credit card payments in September to save $1-million in processing fees.

He says to keep the same number of scholarships and bursaries, money had to be cut from other areas.

But Shannon Zimmerman — president of Dalhousie's student union — says a lot of students rely on credit card payments to cover costs not covered by loans and scholarships.