Central Community College Becomes the First School in Nebraska to Deliver Refund Payments to Students Electronically Via OneDisburse Refund Management

New Haven, CT – October 30, 2007 - Higher One, a financial services company focused exclusively on higher education, announced that Central Community College, a public two-year college in Grand Island, Nebraska, has reach an agreement to partner with the company to issue financial aid refunds to the college's students.

Not happy with issuing paper checks to the college's students, CCC decided to look for more efficient way to issue refunds. Higher One's OneDisburse Refund Management caught the attention of the administrators at CCC because the service would enable the college to offer a better level of customer service to its students.

"We needed to provide our students with options other than mailed checks," explained Larry Glazier, College Business Officer at CCC. "We did have the option to use our student management system to provide direct deposit to a students account, however that option would not provide a 'Debit Card'. Also your service provides banking in addition to the debt card; others did not provide a banking option. Partnering with Higher One allows the college staff to do what they do best 'serve students needs' and Higher One to do what they do best 'distribute student refunds'."

Glazier noted that CCC spoke with other Higher One clients while looking for a better system of distributing financial aid refunds. Hearing these schools' objective impressions of OneDisburse Refund Management was very helpful in the decision making process.

"References we interviewed were honest about their experience with Higher One, discussing their concerns as well as the success," said Glazier. "One of the reference colleges used the same management software, so we were able to see how Higher One would interface with our software."

The process of bringing the service to campus and notifying students that a change would take place was of concern to the administrators of CCC. Higher One was able to set itself apart from others with its 8-12 week implantation process, known as Launch.

"Higher One's implementation plan was superior to others we looked at," said Glazier. "We think this is due to the fact that Higher One's sole business is student refund management."

OneDisburse Refund Management will give the students a choice of three different ways of receiving their financial aid refunds: direct deposit to the OneAccount, Higher One's FDIC-insured checking account tied to a Debit MasterCard®, an ACH sent to their current bank account, or a paper check mailed to the students' homes.

One of the goals for the implementation of this service is to provide students with a choice between multiple ways of receiving their refunds, so they can pick the option that is most convenient for them. CCC also wants to deliver refunds to students more quickly, which can be accomplished using one of the two electronic options.

"We want to provide a service to CCC students, not currently available at other Nebraska Community Colleges," explained Glazier.

CCC will begin issuing refunds to its students in May of 2008.

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:
Melissa Kanter
Edelman
212.704.8261
Melissa.kanter@edelman.com