COS Looks to Improve Customer Service to Students with Higher One's Services

New Haven, CT - July 17, 2007 - Higher One, a student-focused company servicing higher education, announced today that College of the Sequoias has decided to implement Higher One's OneDisburse Refund Management program to speed the delivery of financial aid refunds to their students. COS will begin to distribute financial aid refunds using OneDisburse by August of this year.

COS joins a host other schools like the University of Houston in Texas and Pace University in New York, as institutions that have blazed a new trail for refund efficiency in their respective states. Higher One now has 81 clients in over 20 states.

"COS is happy to be the first College in California to begin a partnership with Higher One in an effort to provide our students with a faster and more convenient method of financial aid disbursement," said Bill Scroggins, Superintendent/President of College of the Sequoias. "By providing our students with a choice of three different ways to receive their awards, we feel confident that OneDisburse Refund Management will improve the financial aid disbursement process."

The administration at COS, a college with an enrollment of just over 10,000 students, has a desire to reduce the amount of waiting time that a student endures while awaiting a payment from the school. Currently, COS relies on a paper check system of financial aid disbursement, which keeps the staff at the College tied up with the check production process.

Upon reviewing the options that were at the College's disposal, COS decided to partner with
Higher One after speaking with several schools on the east coast who have had the opportunity to use OneDisburse Refund Management. Dr. Linda Fontanilla, Dean of Student Services, said that the conversations were very influential in the decision making process.

The administration at COS wanted the company that they chose to disburse refunds to provide students with multiple methods of receiving their financial aid rewards. Higher One gives students a choice of three such methods, two of which are electronic. Students have the ability to deposit refunds into their existing credit union account or other bank account. The College also feels that the free, FDIC-Insured checking account, called the OneAccount, provided by Higher One will be a great tool for the students.

"We like that the students can have their awards transferred into their OneAccounts, as it will enable our students to gain experience using online banking and permit them to become more familiar with a trend that is becoming more important in the 21st Century," explained Dr. Fontanilla.

About Higher One

Focused exclusively on higher education, Higher One provides Refund Management to higher education institutions and banking services to members of their community through a card based solution. Higher One's integrated solution helps it's clients reduce administrative costs, streamline business processes, create new revenue streams, increase student customer service and strengthen the campus community. Higher One's OneDisburse provides students with more choices and better services for receiving financial refunds and payroll. Higher One also offers a suite of banking services called OneFinanceSM, which includes the OneAccount, a no minimum balance, no monthly fee checking account with the OneCard, a Debit MasterCard for ATM withdrawals and purchases, and exclusive features such as "Send Money", Easy RefundSM, and Campus AutoLoad. The OneFinanceSM and OneDisburse solutions can be integrated with the institution's ID card or provided through a separate "refund only" card.

To date, Higher One has disbursed $2 billion dollars in refunds for its clients. More than 600,000 students, faculty, and staff at distinguished public and private higher education institutions use Higher One's services through their ID or refund card.

About College of the Sequoias

College of the Sequoias is a two year, fully accredited community college offering associated degrees, certificate programs and university transfers programs with a long history of excellence in higher education. The College serves the majority of Tulare and part of Kings and Fresno counties with an enrollment of about 10,000 students. COS is very proud of the educational support offered to students and is dedicated and highly committed to enhancing our diverse educational and cultural campus environment. Our administration, faculty and staff are committed to the advancement of economic growth and to our mission of preparing our citizens for productive work, lifelong learning and community involvement.