NEW HAVEN, CT, January 24, 2006 - Higher One, a financial services company that provides Refund Management and banking services to higher education institutions, today announced they have surpassed $1 billion in disbursements. Higher One continues to prove itself as an industry leader, having more than doubled their college and university client base in 2005.

Leading the trend within higher education, Higher One has become the standard of service for American higher education institutions looking for ways to improve the payment process. Higher One's patent pending OneDisburse Refund Management is the most efficient, student-centric, and cost-effective way of making payments to students. Higher One started with a unique understanding of students' needs, as the company was founded by three students who were looking to provide a service to benefit not only students, but also the schools they attend.

"As schools look to meet the demanding needs of students by providing the latest in technology and convenience, the adoption of Refund Management will continue to grow, replacing paper checks and ACH, increasing the need for companies like Higher One," added Hatton. "Students and schools benefit from the fact that Higher One handles the entire process — making the payment and managing any associated exceptions or customer service needs."

Higher One provides universities with Refund Management, a new payment process that reduces both hard and soft costs for the institution while also increasing services. Schools make approximately $15 billion 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 schools over $225 million per year. Higher One's OneDisburse Refund Management vastly improves the student payment experience.

Higher One's OneFinance^SM program also enables their clients to offer a suite of financial services, including a free checking account with unique features designed for students. Students, faculty and staff can use Higher One's OneCard for primary bank access, as a MasterCard Debit card, retrieving cash from ATMs, making purchases on and off campus, transferring money electronically and monitoring their accounts online 24/7 through the University-branded OneAccount website. Friends and family can also deposit money directly into their student's OneAccount.

Higher One has been providing Refund Management disbursement and banking services to colleges and universities, and their students, across the US since 2002. Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, TX reported that their Higher One Bearkat OneCard program generated $240,000 in net cost avoidance in the first semester alone, and after subtracting the initial costs of establishing a card office - produced about $400,000 in gross cost avoidance for the year. The University of West Georgia and Kennesaw State University have both documented substantial, measurable impacts on the institutional operations and were presented with the "2004 Best Practices Award" for their implementation of Higher One's OneDisburse Refund Management by the State University System of Georgia Board of Regents.

Refund Management provides institutions with an easy way to increase the percentage of payments that are made to students electronically. The desire to have payments made electronically is a growing trend that was recently acknowledged in some guidance from the Department of Education. According to E.D. (Education Department), "Institutions are increasingly changing the way they disburse funds to students by moving away from issuing checks to transferring funds electronically." Refund Management is the easiest way for an institution to help students receive their money electronically while still allowing for the option to receive a paper check if the student desires.

E.D. states: "In response to this trend, several companies are offering services that include: Obtaining the student's authorization to perform electronic transfers; Transferring the funds electronically to the student's bank account; Opening a bank account for the student; Issuing debit cards in conjunction with a participating bank. Companies that contract with institutions to provide these types of services, in some instances, become third-party servicers. The regulations in 34 CFR 668.2 define a third-party servicer as an entity that contracts with an institution to administer any aspect of its Title IV programs. Thus, if an institution contracts with a company to perform activities that are the institution's responsibilities under the Title IV programs, the company is a third-party servicer. In the contract between the institution and the servicer, both parties must agree to comply with all statutory and regulatory provisions governing the Title IV programs and agree to be jointly and severally liable for any violation by the servicer of these provisions. Other items that the institution and servicer must agree to are described in 34 CFR 668.25 (c). Also, a third-party servicer must submit an annual audit of the activities it performs on behalf of the institution to the Department as specified in 34 CFR 668.23 (c)."

With it's sole focus on higher education, Higher One completed a third-party servicer audit prior to the release of E.D. guidelines.

Founded in 2000, Higher One provides higher education institutions and their students with efficient, convenient and easy-to-use solutions to handle financial disbursements. These include: student refunds, on-campus and community purchases, payroll and employee expenses, as well as the collection of payments from students, parents, and sponsors.

Higher One offers a suite of online banking services including the OneAccount, an FDIC-insured checking account, and OneCard, a Debit MasterCard^®. To date, Higher One has disbursed over $4 billion dollars in refunds for its clients to more than 1,000,000 students, faculty, and staff at distinguished public and private higher education institutions throughout the country.