College To Continue Relationship With Higher One
Miami Dade College will continue its subscription to student financial aid management company Higher One, according to Juan Mendieta, the College’s director of communications.
“The decision to extend the agreement will be made at the appropriate time in the future,” Mendieta said.
College officials have until March to opt out of their agreement with Higher One, if not the company can continue the agreement for another five years.
Since 2006, Higher One has been in charge of disbursing financial aid to MDC students. Six hundred colleges in the United States use Higher One. The company offers three ways for financial aid recipients to receive refunds: either through a mailed check, a transfer to an independent bank account, or a direct deposit into a Higher One sponsored checking account (the OneAccount) that is connected to a Higher OneCard debit Mastercard.
In 2013, the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) condemned Higher One for not providing information on student fees, features, and limitations in regard to the OneAccount, failing to tell users that the OneAccount is solely internet based, and for not listing the locations of fee-free Higher One sponsored ATM machines.
In response to these issues, the FRB ordered Higher One, which made $220.11 million in revenues during 2014, to pay $24 million dollars in restitution to 570,000 OneAccount users, approximately $42 dollars per account holder. Meanwhile, the FDIC demanded that Higher One and WEX Bank (which issues the OneCard) pay 900,000 consumers $31 million in reparations. Details of each restitution deal have not yet been finalized.
“… [The finalization of restitution details] takes some time to organize with regulators,” said Higher One Corporate Communications Vice President Shoba Lemoine.
However, Lemoine added that in the near future, Higher One’s homepage will include information on which account holders are affected by the reimbursements.
The College and Higher One provided conflicting information as to whether or not MDC pays Higher One for disbursing financial aid refunds. The office of the chief financial officer at MDC, according to Mendieta, claimed that Higher One provides its services for free, while Lemoine stated that the College pays an annual subscription fee. Higher One has donated $180,000 to the MDC college foundation.
Some students and publications have complained about certain fees related to the OneAccount, such as a 50-cent charge for making OneCard debit transactions using a pin number, a $2.50 fee for taking out money with the OneCard at a non-Higher One ATM, and a 3.5 percent levy on withdrawals made from the OneAccount while meeting with a bank teller.
“You can use it but… there’s the fees and the identification issues, it’s just a hassle,” said Kendall Campus early childhood education major Paulina Garcia, 19.
A 2012 report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund stated that Higher One made 80 percent of its revenues from student fees. Higher One would not make public the number of MDC students using OneAccounts.
Despite criticism against the company, Mendieta stated that the college is satisfied with the upgrades Higher One has made to its services since 2013.
“We are not going to respond to something that happened three or four years ago,” Mendieta said.
According to Lemoine, Higher One has adopted most of the changes called upon by the FRB and FDIC and has dropped certain fees (such as a six-month inactive account levy) in response to negative feedback. The company also plans to have its OneAccount become the first Department of Education regulated account in July. This would entail increased transparency and the dropping of certain fees, such as the 50-cent charge on OneCard debit transactions that require a pin number.
