Student Advantage Sells Majority of its SA Cash Assets to Blackboard

Boston and Washington, D.C., February 3, 2003 - Student Advantage, Inc. (Nasdaq: STAD) announced today it has closed an asset purchase agreement with Blackboard Inc. under which Student Advantage has sold the majority of its SA Cash assets to Blackboard for $4.5 million in cash.

  As part of the agreement, Student Advantage will become the exclusive provider of membership and rewards programs to Blackboard’s client base.  In addition, Blackboard and Student Advantage entered into a limited licensing agreement whereby Student Advantage will continue to offer the SA Cash product line to a set of designated colleges and universities.

  “Consistent with our mission to develop standards for commerce within the higher education marketplace, we believe this relationship with Blackboard will accelerate the broad acceptance of university ID stored-value programs, an increasingly important initiative for colleges and universities throughout the country” said Raymond Sozzi, president and CEO of Student Advantage, Inc.

  “Student Advantage has done a great job incubating and developing a national service for expanding student payment accounts off campus and online to local and national merchants,” commented Michael Chasen, CEO of Blackboard Inc.  “Our acquisition of SA Cash will expand the service to hundreds of institutions using the Blackboard Transaction System as well as alternative systems.”

Luminary Capital acted as financial advisor to Student Advantage on this transaction.

  In other news, the company announced it has modified its loan agreement with Reservoir Capital Partners, reducing its January 31 payment from $3.5 million to $1.5 million, leaving Student Advantage with approximately $3 million in proceeds from the sale of SA Cash to be used for ongoing working capital needs. The scheduled $4 million payment due on March 31 was unaffected.

 The company is continuing discussions with a group of existing stockholders, including Sozzi, regarding a possible acquisition of the company or assets of the company.