Flagler College signs on to use Higher One's OneDisburse refund management service to improve student services and reduce costs

Higher One’s Refund Management disbursement service will Enable Students to Receive Their Money Faster with More Refund Choices.

St. Augustine, FL, JUNE, 2006 - Flagler College located in Florida 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. Flagler will be using Higher One's OneDisburse^® Refund Management disbursement service and is the forty-first 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 there interest stemmed from the fact that utilizing Refund Management with an outside vendor helps the institution avoid IT and data security risks.

"We are very excited about implementing Higher One's OneDisburse system," said Kenneth S. Russom, Vice President of Business Services at Flagler College. "Under our current process, our students wait in line to pick up their paper checks, once the new process is implemented it will improve services, giving students a faster and more convenient way to access their refunds."

Currently, Flagler issues paper checks to its 2,500 students and requires a manual refund process. Flagler plans to implement Higher One's OneDisburse Non-ID Refund Management, which will help the college reduce administrative costs, streamline business processes, increase student choice 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 Flagler Debit MasterCard® can be used worldwide everywhere MasterCard® is accepted.

Higher One's OneDisburse Refund Management 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 college 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 college. 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 checking account, or a paper check.

"We are happy to be providing Flagler 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 Service 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.

More than 40 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, and can provide it upon request.

About Flagler College

Flagler College is a co-educational, four-year public institution of higher education. The college is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award a Bachelor of Science in 20 majors and offers over 26 minors in liberal arts, business, and education. Flagler College is named after Henry M. Flagler and the campus' major landmark, Hotel Ponce de Leon, is named after the explorer and reflects Flagler's commitment to preserving its architecturally and historically unique campus structures. The school's location in St. Augustine is the nation's oldest European settlement and its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean allows its students and faculty to appreciate the aesthetics of Northeast Florida.

About Higher One

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.

Higher One recently ranked # 85 on the 2007 Inc. List of the 500 Fastest Growing Companies in the United States. Higher One is based in New Haven, CT.