Increased efficiency at heart of Ivy Tech Community College decision to partner with Higher One

Ivy Tech students to benefit from faster financial aid refund distribution

New Haven, CT – May 26, 2009 - Higher One, a financial services and payment company focused exclusively on higher education, announced it has been selected by Ivy Tech Community College to streamline the refund distribution process at the institution.

“Currently checks are issued and mailed to students from our state-wide offices located in Indianapolis, Indiana,” stated Mark Husk, Assistant Treasurer at Ivy Tech Community College. “The College was looking for a more efficient process and a way to provide the student’s financial aid refunds in a more timely and secure manner.”

Ivy Tech considered building an internally managed ACH program, but did not have the resources to maintain it and knew it would be best to partner with Higher One to handle this cumbersome process.

“We have just completed an implementation of a new College-wide administrative software system and while the new system would accommodate an ACH program the College decided to use a third party that specializes in these types of programs instead of doing it internally”, explained Husk.

Ivy Tech administrators decided to work with Higher One as a result of positive feedback from other colleges currently utilizing Higher One’s services. As a result of this partnership, students will be sent a card in the mail. Each student will be asked to use the information on the card to log into a secure website to select how he or she would like to receive a refund. Students will have a choice of two electronic methods to receive a financial aid refund from the College: direct deposit to the OneAccount, a no minimum balance, no monthly fee, FDIC-Insured checking account provided by Higher One, or an ACH transfer to another bank account.

Higher One will communicate the program to Ivy Tech students so they understand how to use and take advantage of the new service coming to campus. In addition, Higher One collects, protects, and maintains student banking information and refund preferences, distributes the refunds, handles bounced ACH payments and returned checks, and fields any refund related customer service inquiries from students or staff.

With the new process, Ivy Tech will send Higher One a file with student names and refund amounts along with a wire for the total amount of the refunds to be distributed. Higher One will then distribute refunds to students.

“We are excited to be partnering with Higher One and are pleased that our students will now receive their financial aid refunds quicker than before,” stated Husk. 

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 $7.6 billion dollars in refunds for its clients to more than 2 Million students, faculty, and staff at over 300 distinguished public and private higher education institutions throughout the country.

Higher One recently ranked # 79 on the 2009 Fast 500 list of the 500 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in the United States. Higher One is based in New Haven, CT.

About Ivy Tech Community College:

Ivy Tech Community College is the state of Indiana’s largest public post-secondary institution and the nation’s largest singly-accredited statewide community college system with more than 120,000 students enrolled annually. Ivy Tech has 23 campuses throughout Indiana. It serves as the state’s engine of workforce development, offering affordable degree programs and training that are aligned with the needs of its community along with courses and programs that transfer to other colleges and universities in Indiana. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association.