Brookdale Community College Partners with Higher One to Ensure Speedy Delivery of Refunds to Students

New Haven, CT – May 5, 2008 - Higher One, a financial services and payment company focused exclusively on higher education, announced today that it has reached an agreement to partner with Brookdale Community College, in Lincroft, NJ, to distribute financial aid refunds to the institution’s 13,000 students.

“Higher One promotes more of a partnership with its colleges than I had seen with other vendors,” explained Michael DeStefano, Manager for Accounts Receivable. “Higher One will work with BCC to market this opportunity and assumes a lot of responsibility now on our shoulders. Higher One was also willing to work with BCC on specific concerns and needs and satisfied all of them.”

Higher One’s OneDisburse Refund Management enables an institution to increase the amount of choices a student has to receive their financial aid refunds. In addition to this the institution no longer has to write paper checks; a costly and time consuming way to distribute these much needed payments to students.

Students are sent a card in the mail that enables them to log onto a webpage. Here each student has his or her choice between multiple ways to receive his or her refund – including direct deposit to a no minimum balance, no monthly fee, FDIC-Insured checking account provided by Higher One.

The Institution will then send Higher One a file with each student’s name and refund amount along with a wire for the total amount of the funds to be disbursed. Once these have been received, Higher One distributes the refunds to students based on their preferred method. Higher One also handles all of the customer service surrounding the disbursements.

“I expect Higher One to provide outstanding service to our students while not assaulting them with a lot of banking fees,” stated DeStefano. “I would like to see Brookdale less involved in the delivery of the refund and in student contact regarding same. It is my hope that our partnership will provide a service to our students that they find useful and in line with the way they expect technology to work for them.”

Brookdale looked at other ways to streamline this process, including partnering with a software company. This option would have required the College to do much of the work.

“We had looked at another method of disbursing these funds but this option requires BCC to assume the responsibility of getting students on board and in assisting them in managing their accounts. BCC would also assume the responsibility of storing and protecting all student bank account information. While this could be done, Higher One is the better option,” said DeStefano.

Brookdale will begin issuing refunds to students through Higher One during the fall semester of this year.

About Brookdale Community College:
Founded in 1967, Brookdale Community College is a two year, public institution located in Lincroft, New Jersey. Home to 13,000 students, BCC is one of the largest institutions of higher education in the state and is consistently ranked in the top 50 community colleges in the country.

The College offers (2-year) associate degrees in over 50 programs, plus noncredit classes in many areas of personal and professional interest. In the 30+ years since Brookdale opened its doors, both the College and the County have grown tremendously. The 220- acre main campus in Lincroft today comprises 22 buildings totaling 731,353 square feet, with recent construction including Larrison Hall, the Center for the Visual Arts, the Bankier Library, and the new Warner Student Life Center.

Brookdale is an open admission college, available to anyone 18 years of age or older, anyone who is a high school graduate or holder of an equivalency diploma.