College is now a constellation of Venmo requests—your roommate’s share of utilities, your half of an Uber ride, and the ticket to your friend’s a capella performance that you don’t actually want to go to. On Wednesday, Venmo's parent company PayPal announced it will let students pay their tuition on its app.

Students can now make one of the largest payments of their lives on the same platform where they might see a high school acquaintance paying for 'leaf emoji, fire emoji, smoke emoji.' You might open the Venmo app to buy a latte then think, ‘Oh, right, I haven’t paid my tuition yet! Let me do that real quick.’

‘Tuition is the single biggest financial decision students and families will navigate for higher education,’ said Nelnet Campus Commerce president Jackie Strohbehn. ‘Every payment option we add, including PayPal and Venmo, is about meeting them at that moment with more flexibility and less friction, so affordability isn’t a barrier to staying enrolled.’

When eighteen-year-olds who make £10 per hour at the campus library face their five-figure tuition bills, they’re really just wishing for more payment options. We used to go into debt via unfamiliar portals, but now you can deplete your bank account within the comfort of the Venmo or PayPal app.

Back in my day, we lacked an ‘integration that enables institutions to broaden choice and create a more frictionless payment experience for students and families,’ as TouchNet president Jeremy Loch put it. Gone are the days when students will lack access to ‘a seamless experience that delivers value for both tuition payers and institutions.’