Higher One Delivers Financial Aid Refunds to Students at Universities Across the Country with New Method of Electronic Disbursement

NEW HAVEN, CT. – An increasing number of students around the country are finding the Fall term a little less stressful as they no longer wait in long lines on campus for their Student Aid refund checks. Universities are also benefiting by no longer having to cut thousands of paper financial aid checks and hiring additional workers to help distribute them to students. “We successfully disbursed $93,483,232 for 13 higher education institutions faster and at significantly less cost than if the Universities had done the disbursements themselves, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless man hours,” said Dean Hatton, President and CEO, Higher One.

Higher One, a leading provider of customized financial services dedicated exclusively to the higher education market, announced that it has successfully serviced its largest ever Fall term (August 1 October 15), processing nearly $93.5 million in financial aid disbursements across a customer base of more than 200,000 students at 13 U.S. universities.

Fall 2004’s record of nearly $93 Million in disbursements represents a 322% percent increase over the $29 million in financial aid disbursements processed in Fall 2003 term. The total number of disbursement transactions in the current term was just over 65,000, a 337% percent increase over the nearly 19,500 transactions in the same year-ago period.

Higher One provides universities with a new payments process that reduces the cost of administration for disbursements, including savings on paper checks, ACH, staff time and postage. Universities make approximately $15 billion dollars in refund disbursements to students per year through more than 15 million payments. The processing and handling of these payments along with associated customer services is estimated to cost universities over $225 million per year. Higher One has generated an estimated $4.215 million in total cost avoidance for its clients.

Higher One clients have also said that its programs also allow universities to save administrative jobs and maintain enrollments. A mid-size university of 15,000 can typically create $500,000 per year in cost avoidance through Higher One’s OneDisburseSM and OneFinanceSM services.

New customer service features added this year by Higher One include EasyHelp, an interactive FAQ knowledge database allowing students to get their questions answered online anytime; OneSupport, a dedicated customer service department for university administrative staff; and “Where’s My Card” a feature allowing new students to check the current status of their OneCards online without having to call customer service. “These new -service functions help us continue to improve customer service, and insured that financial aid disbursements in the Fall 2004 term went smoothly,” said Miles Lasater, Chief Operations Officer. “Subsequent customer satisfaction surveys indicate that over eighty-five percent of students are satisfied with the features of their OneCard and OneAccount.”

“We’re not spending time, money and effort on printing checks and having students stand in line and pick them up,” said Audrey Wilson, director of the OneCard Office for Angelo State University in San Angelo, TX. “This is another way to keep offering services without having to add additional resources.”