Higher One direct deposit information
for student accounts Finance
Enhancement Request
Ticket 130327-000145
PROBLEM DEFINITION
Many MnSCU institutions have implemented the Higher One card program. A student uses the
card to go online and make a choice as to how they want to receive their financial aid overage payment,
a refund payment, or a student payroll payment. They can choose to have the money sent to their own
existing account, they can open an account with Higher One, or they can request a paper check. No
matter what their choice is, their direct deposit information in ISRS must be directed to the bank Higher
One uses. Higher One then disburses the funds based on the student’s choice
Initially when Century College and many others signed up with Higher One, the system office ITS
department agreed to take a file of all newly registered students and populate their direct deposit fields
with the Higher One bank information. This was to be done once each term, scheduled between the
beginning of the term and the first major financial aid disbursement. System office ITS did do this for a
short time.
A Higher One Task Force was formed to work on various items related to Higher One. Mostly
this work focused on better communication to students.
However, at one of those meetings, it was pointed out by system office ITS staff that there was
only one person who has the security to process the direct deposit file upload, and that all of the
campuses would need to have this process done within the same few days each term. It was presented
as risky, since only one person could do it, and very time consuming for that person. The campuses
were asked if they would consider manually entering the direct deposit information for spring 2013 to
see if that was a manageable task. Based on that information, and after a fair amount of discussion, the
campuses agreed to try it for one term.
Higher One Taskforce notes indicate: “If the institutions determine this is too time consuming
then this can be discussed further to see if there are ways to reduce the workload.”
When I brought this information back to my campus and when I shared it with the Metro
Alliance Business Managers’ group, the reaction was negative. Both audiences were concerned that
this was a very manual process for the campus staff, which is risky, and that they did not understand
why only one person in the system office ITS department could do this, nor did they understand why it
would be so time consuming that it couldn’t be done at the system level.
For spring 2013 term we did have someone manually enter the same direct deposit information
for every newly registered student. It was time consuming and very tedious - entering the same
routing number and account number for student after student. And there were errors because the
person was interrupted and missed a student or thought she had finished one and moved on to the
next. For something this repetitious, it certainly seems there must be a way to automate it.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
As a proposed solution, I would suggest that the system office ITS department find a way to
automate this, so that when a new student registers there is a default for each institution with their
routing information and bank account information with Higher One. A college/university could
designate whether or not they use Higher One, enter their specific routing information and bank
account number, and then any student who registers at that college/university would have that
information default into their direct deposit information.
IMPACT
We could gather data on the number of new students each term and estimate the time spent
manually entering the data for each student. We would also have to factor in the time spent when
there is an error or a student is missed in the manual process.
STAKEHOLDERS
Staff and students will be affected by this project. If the process is automated, it should
eliminate the errors of missed students, so students would be positively impacted by the enhancement.
Staff are spending time doing the most manual data entry information, entering the same exact routing
number and account number for each newly registered student for that term. In this day of lean
thinking and lean budgets, it is a big step backwards to have someone doing this sort of task. The staff
could make much better use their time, skills and abilities if they did not have this task.
OTHER INFORMATION
Several of the metro area institutions pulled information about the number of new cards issued
by month over the past 12 months. That report is here:
Higher
One
Launched:
Month
Prior
year
May-12
Mar-12
Prior
year
Prior
year
Aug-12
Saint
Paul
College
Century
College
Inver
Hills
Metro
State
DCTC
Anoka Tech
Mar-12 61
-
5,759
267
176
-
Apr-12 822
-
687
891
373
-
4,557
1,233
572
311
-
Jun-12 697
190
442
634
540
-
Jul-12 798
89
562
541
262
-
Aug-12 1,163
7,627
1,165
670
655
Sep-12 43
134
167
195
98
64
Oct-12 7
22
40
270
71
8
Nov-12 745
7
354
600
191
8
Dec-12 634
1,124
474
484
191
169
Jan-13 428
1,361
529
333
295
270
Feb-13 32
30
57
98
45
15,141
11,469
5,555
3,208
May-12 773
Total
6,203
2,181
8
2,708