Muscle Shoals, AL May, 2006 - Northwest Shoals Community College, located in Northern Alabama, today announced that they have partnered with Higher One, a leading provider of customized financial services dedicated exclusively to the higher education market to improve how refunds are disbursed to their students. Northwest-Shoals will be using Higher One's OneDisburse^® Refund Management. Northwest-Shoals is the 40th school to sign on with Higher One.

Higher One continues to experience increasing interest from colleges and universities nationwide as institutions look to improve their student services and decrease administrative costs. As more institutions learn that a solution such as Higher One's OneDisburse^® exists they are quickly embracing this solution to better serve their students. Some institutions have also expressed that their interest stemmed from the fact that utilizing Refund Management with an outside vendor helps the institution avoid IT and data security risks.

Prior to Higher One, Northwest-Shoals disbursement process consisted of mailing paper checks to their students. Northwest-Shoals plans to implement Higher One's OneDisburse^® Easy Refund Refund Management this summer, which will help the college reduce administrative costs, streamline business processes, increase student choice, offer the option of direct deposit, and improve the student experience. Students will have the opportunity to use the OneAccount, a free FDIC insured checking account linked to their OneCard. If students choose to utilize this option their Northwest-Shoals Debit MasterCard® can be used worldwide everywhere MasterCard® is accepted.

"The new system will allow the College to put refunds in the hands of students much more efficiently than in the past," said Dr. Paul Merrill, NW-SCC Chief Fiscal Officer. "Plus, students and faculty will have the added benefit of using the MasterCard debit card in more venues if they desire."

Higher One's OneDisburse^® Refund Management disbursement service is more than just payments; it streamlines the entire disbursement process. OneDisburse includes the handling of all disbursements, customer service, reconciliation and other time consuming functions - eliminating many costs associated with refund delivery for the school and increasing customer service for students. Higher One's service is the only comprehensive Refund Management available today and features no setup costs, minimal involvement with schools' IT systems, and a unique revenue-sharing benefit for the school. With OneDisburse^® students can choose any of three options to receive financial aid and other refunds: direct deposit to the FREE OneAccount checking account, ACH to another bank account, or a paper check.

"We are happy to be providing Northwest-Shoals with a program that offers significant cost savings for the institution as well as more choices for students," said Dean Hatton, President and CEO, Higher One. "I am certain that they will be pleased with our Refund Management along with our other dozens of customers."

Leading the trend within higher education, New Haven, CT-based Higher One has become the standard of service for American higher education institutions looking for ways to improve the payment process and student experience. Higher One handles the entire process and manages any associated exceptions or customer service needs.

Forty colleges and universities across the country have signed with Higher One to use the company's Refund Management. Since September 2002, Higher One has helped its clients disburse more than a billion dollars through over half a million individual payments.

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 ED, "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.

ED 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 its sole focus on higher education, Higher One completed a third-party servicer audit prior to the release of ED guidelines.

Located in the Northwest corner of Alabama, NW-Shoals is comprised of multiple campuses serving the counties of Colbert, Franklin, Lauderdale, and Lawrence, and the western portion of Winston county. The college's students come from both urban and rural communities to their campus sites in the Shoals and Phil Campbell. The modern Northwest-Shoals is the result of the merger on September 9, 1993, of Northwest Alabama and Shoals Community College. Northwest Alabama, started in Phil Campbell, is the state's first junior college, founded in 1963. With more than 5,300 students, the institution represents the strength of community, the traditions of its people, and the vision for future.

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.

Media Contacts:
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Melissa Keklak
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