University Business - December 2012 - (Page 89)

SponSored CaSe Study Fresno State sees quick savings with electronic financial aid refunds alifornia State University, Fresno, takes pride in its want our students subjected to solicitations for the unrelated reputation as one of the leading public universities in services that banks provide,” he says. “And we rejected a prothe state, but last year the business staff discovered posal from a vendor that would have required new campus that Fresno State was lagging in one noteworthy area: the per- cards for all students and staff. Higher One stood out because centage of students electing to receive financial aid refunds refund disbursement is their specialty and their program met our needs.” electronically. Once selected, Higher One We took a hard look at our provided Fresno State with a tworefund disbursement trends and pronged training program. One saw that we were sending paper team worked with Forestiere’s checks to 40 percent of our stustaff to pave the way for the finandents,” says Anthony Forestiere, cial transactions between the university controller at Fresno school and Higher One. Another State. “We contacted other team worked with university schools in the Cal State system staff who would be promoting and found they were sending the OneDisburse program to sturefunds by check to only 5 to 15 dents at the start of the 2012-2013 percent of their students.” school year. The costs associated with disWith the OneDisburse service, bursing financial aid refunds by all of Fresno State’s financial aid check, rather than by ACH or “Higher One stood out refunds are managed by Higher other electronic systems to 8,000 because refund disbursement One. The school sends the aggreof the school’s 20,000 undergated refunds to Higher One elecgraduate students was signifiis their specialty and their tronically, and then Higher One cant. “It cost us $1.10 per student program met our needs. ” disburses the individual refunds per semester to process a refund to students. The students can elect check,” says Forestiere. “And to receive their money via ACH that’s just hard costs—paper stock and mailing; it doesn’t include the cost of printers and to an existing bank account, via direct deposit to a free bank account managed by Higher One, or by check sent by mail. staff time.” “At this point, 70 percent of our students have selected a Fresno State tried to encourage students to receive their financial aid refunds electronically, via ACH transfers to their refund method through Higher One,” says Forestiere. “Our bank accounts, but only 200 students responded to an email goal is to get that to 100 percent, but the good news is that we campaign. “We had a concern with unbanked students,” says are out of the business of sending paper checks, which is an Forestiere. “For them, there’s a security risk in carrying around immediate savings of almost $9,000 per semester.” In addition, he notes, his staff has been able to focus on tasks checks, and a high cost in using check cashing stores to get cash. We needed an alternative that would allow students to of higher priority than printing and mailing refund checks. “This is the way of the future,” he says. “There’s no going back. open a bank account if they needed one.” Early this year, the business staff investigated several ser- I see nothing but positive results for us and our students.” vices for disbursing financial aid refunds, including OneDisburse from Higher One, which is the leading provider of For more information on OneDisburse Refund Management, refund disbursement programs. Forestiere says the OneDis- visit www.higherone.com. burse suite quickly rose to the top of the selection list. “We didn’t want to use a traditional bank because we didn’t C Higher One’s OneDisburse® Refund Management® funds disbursement service ends the need for the school to print and mail checks universitybusiness.com December 2012 | 89 http://www.higherone.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - December 2012

University Business - December 2012
Contents
Editor’s Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Money Matters
Independent Outlook
5 Reasons Flipped Classrooms Work
Test Driving Mobile
Open Source Myth Busters
Models of Efficiency
1st Annual Readers’ Choice Awards
Education Innovators
Viewpoint
Endowments: New Questions
End Note

University Business - December 2012