Students at Eastern Kentucky University to receive refunds faster thanks to agreement with Higher One

New Haven, CT – January 22, 2008 - Higher One, a financial services and payment company focused exclusively on higher education, reached an agreement with Eastern Kentucky University to distribute refunds electronically to the institution’s students beginning in the spring of this year.

“The University was seeking a more effective and efficient means of providing student refunds as we look toward enhancing our ability to better serve students,” explained Barry Poynter, AVP Financial Affairs, at EKU. “Many refunds are processed each semester that require the University to write checks...preparing and printing large numbers of checks slows down the student refund process.”

Higher One’s OneDisburse^® Refund Management^SM allows students to have their refunds direct deposited into the OneAccount—Higher One’s FDIC-insured checking account. Students receive their refunds instantly with the added benefit of a Debit MasterCard^® tied to the account to pay for back to school items such as books, supplies, or rent.

Additionally, OneDisburse Refund Management streamlines the distribution of funds to students by handling all facets of the refund process. The University no longer needs to worry about customer service or collection and maintenance of student bank account information.

Why Higher One?
“Higher One was selected after an extensive RFP process was conducted by the University,” said Poynter. “Through this process, Higher One emerged as the vendor best able to manage the entire student refund process from beginning to end. Higher One is able to take a flat data file provided by the University and do all the processing required to manage the entire student refund process.”

By integrating Higher One’s extensive services with the institution’s pre-existing ID card, EKU will also have the ability to offer the 14,000 currently enrolled undergraduates added convenience and increased versatility.

“We anticipate students receiving their refunds faster and along the way, having a more powerful and functional University ID card in their pocket,” proclaimed Poynter.

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.