When it comes to receiving refunds, students want their money fast and efficiently.

ULM made big changes to do just that. Starting this semester, the university teamed up with Higher One to create the ULM Choice Card.

What is the ULM Choice Card? It provides the option to receive refunds on a debit card, rather than only by the traditional direct deposit or paper check.

The idea of this debit card is to give the students a better way to manage their money and receive their refund faster. However, students have had mixed experiences with the overall process of using Higher One.

Senior psychology major Shaterrica Sampson has only good things to say about the ULM Choice Card. She found using it to be fast, and the set up instructions simple and easy to follow.

“I barely spent five minutes of my time going through the process of setting up my method of receiving my money,” said Sampson. “I really enjoyed using the Higher One card because it saved me from multiple trips to and from student account services.”

But other students had trouble receiving their refund through Higher One and were surprised to find there were small monthly fees to using the ULM Choice Card as their debit card.

“It was much more trouble than it should have been. Using the Higher One system took something that could be accomplished in one step and made it a long and difficult process,” Regan Orman, a sophomore speech language pathology major said.

Orman said that she found the traditional method of distributing refunds to be more convenient than the ULM Choice Card.

“I preferred just depositing the check that came from ULM directly to my existing account,” said Orman. “I had no interest in setting up a new account, and sending information from Higher One to my bank took much longer than it should.”

“I can’t say that I’ve seen time or money savings yet, but that will come down the road,” said William Graves, Chief Business Officer of Business Affairs Department.

Students as well as faculty can expect to learn more about the ULM Choice Card in the future as changes progress.