Refund Management

Blinn College has been in the business of educating students since 1883, a point of pride for its administrators. Even as it honors its pioneering roots, the college also has evolved to meet the needs of students. Founded initially to train young men for the ministry, Blinn became the first county-owned junior college in Texas and one of the largest of the state’s 50 community/junior college districts.

Blinn College has been in the business of educating students since 1883, a point of pride for its administrators. Even as it honors its pioneering roots, the college also has evolved to meet the needs of students. Founded initially to train young men for the ministry, Blinn became the first county-owned junior college in Texas and one of the largest of the state’s 50 community/junior college districts.

Welcome to the third Streamlined of 2009! My colleagues and I are proud to continue this series of publications designed to inform college and university administrators about new and innovative methods of streamlining business office operations.

Until last January, issuing financial aid refunds at Antelope Valley College was a long, tedious process. Instruction files were sent from the school to a remote district office, which printed checks and sent them back to the school to be stuffed into envelopes and mailed to students.

It was a time-consuming and costly procedure, explained Sherrie Padilla, director of financial aid at the community college, located in Lancaster, Calif. “We needed to investigate other ways to disburse refunds to students,” she said.

When it came time to mail financial aid refund checks at Des Moines Area Community College each semester, officials always worried about how many of those checks the post office would return as undeliverable. With nearly 27,000 students attending more than 3,000 classes on six campuses, it was inevitable that many of those students would have forgotten to inform the school of a new address.

Wilmington University’s open admissions policy, flexible scheduling and 11 locations in Delaware and New Jersey are fundamental to its mission of offering careeroriented undergraduate and graduate degree programs for a diverse range of traditional and nontraditional students.

Dowling College, in Oakdale, NY, has 7,000 students, most of whom obtain financial aid refunds each semester. The school implemented Higher One’s OneDisburse "Refund Management" system in 2007.

Welcome to the second Streamlined of 2009! My colleagues and I are proud to continue this series of publications designed to inform college and university administrators about new and innovative methods of streamlining business office operations.

Located in northwest Arizona, Mohave Community College has four campuses in a county that spans almost 14,000 square miles. To get from the centrally located business office on the Kingman campus to the North Mohave campus requires traveling around the Grand Canyon.

Our process was pretty much like everybody else’s. It was all about paper and very time consuming.