Preschools now accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin
According to Marco Ciocco, Co-Founder and Chairman of The Montessori Schools in Flatiron and SoHo, both schools have started accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum and, Litecoin as tuition fee payments since June this year.
Payments using cryptocurrencies are accepted by way of an integration with digital currency platform Coinbase, which automatically converts the cryptocurrency payments to US dollars.
Ciocco says the school’s move to accept digital currency as payments for tuition fee payments began more than a year ago, following requests from their student’s parents.
With the growing requests to accept cryptocurrencies, the school decided to seriously look at how to cater it and how could they make it work.
Ciocco states:
"Parents who were early adopters are now able to take advantage of the appreciation of their digital assets and use them to pay for their children’s education – something that will ultimately have a lifetime impact on their families”.
The two preschools ascribe to the Montessori philosophy of education, an approach to learning developed in the early 20th century by Maria Montessori. According to their website, tuition at the schools can run as high as $30,950 per annum, which is worth roughly 12.3 BTC at current prices.
Cryptocurrency as payment method
Ciocco, who revealed that he has been personally following the cryptocurrency space for the past several years, said he expects that the trend of using digital currency will continue as times go on since many of the parents have already begun utilizing that payment option.
Ciocco expands:
"As a forward-thinking administration, we like to stay ahead of the curve and would not be surprised if the percentage of tuition paid in digital currencies continues to grow every year and becomes a substantial portion of our payments”.
Cryptocurrency in schools
Several US universities have made Blockchain courses available for those who are interested to specialize and learn more about the technology. Previous report also show how Bitcoin donations were being accepted in several schools showing the growing adoption rate of the cryptocurrency in edtech.