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Higher One Holdings, Inc. has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the company to an affiliate of Blackboard for $5.15 in cash per share. The all-cash sale price represents a 37.3% premium over the closing price of the Higher One Holdings shares on June 29, 2016 at an equity value of $260 million.

The asset to be purchased by Blackboard is Higher One's CASHNet line of business. It provides secure bill presentment, online and in-person payments and student payment plan services to more than 700 campuses nationwide. CASHNet was acquired by Higher One back in 2009, and was the single remaining part of Higher One following previous transactions for the refund distribution, student banking and other component parts.

“Following up on the successful consummation of the sales of the data analytics business and the refunds disbursements business, the Board is pleased to be able to approve this transaction to deliver cash-certain value into the hands of our shareholders,”says Paul Biddelman, chairman of the Higher One Board of Directors. “After contacting approximately 60 potential bidders and multiple rounds of competitive bidding and negotiations, Higher One is confident the substantial all-cash premium offered by this transaction maximizes shareholder value and is in the best interest of our shareholders, customers and employees.”

A tender offer will be made for all outstanding shares of Higher One common stock at a price of $5.15 per share, and the transaction is expected to occur in the third quarter of 2016.

Blackboard Transact President and COO, David Marr, addressed the acquisition in a blog post on the company's website and highlights the importance of the CASHNet platform in the deal.

CASHNet will be a natural complement to Blackboard and Blackboard Transact in supporting institutions, Marr says. "This acquisition dramatically broadens and strengthens our commitment to the educational community. It recognizes our understanding of the dependency between student financial management, teaching and learning, and student engagement across the entire educational experience."

Marr made sure to distance the CASHNet offering from the maligned Higher One refund management service, saying, "with almost 30 years serving the education community, and predating Higher One, CASHNet should not be confused with Higher One’s former financial aid 'refund' business, which was recently sold."

CR80News will bring you more on the subject as further details are released.

ACI Worldwide, provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, and Ohio's Cedarville University have partnered to facilitate the university's tuition payments across multiple channels. The partnership will leverage ACI’s UP Bill Payment Solution that integrates into Colleague by Ellucian, to simplify Cedarville's tuition payment processing.

With an enrollment of nearly 4,000 undergraduate and graduate students, Cedarville was in need of an electronic payment system that provided the best integration into Colleague, while not requiring additional programming to integrate with its ERP system.

“When we needed a billing and payment solution capable of keeping up with student demands, we turned to Ellucian Self-Service and ACI’s UP Bill Payment Solution, which provided an optimal payment experience,” says Jon Shrubsole, director of Treasury and Regulatory Services, Cedarville University. “After researching others providers, ACI not only provided excellent integration with Colleague by Ellucian, but cost savings that others could not meet due to this integration.”

“We’re pleased to build upon our twenty year partnership with ACI to satisfy more than 200 colleges and universities,” says Kari Branjord, senior vice president, product management, Ellucian. “ACI and Ellucian co-developed a real-time interface providing rich integration into our Colleague by Ellucian software. This integration makes tuition payments easy for students and staff.”

“We’re proud to have hundreds of higher education clients like Cedarville University,” said Mike Braatz, chief product officer, ACI Worldwide. “With our bill payment solution, these schools have been able to raise student satisfaction by 24% and reduce staff time spent on payments by 19% on average.”*

ACI provides campus payment systems to colleges and universities with more than 300 higher education institutions in the United States and Puerto Rico utilizing its payment processing platform.

ScholarChip, provider of smart one-card systems for K-12 schools, has partnered with education technology company, PowerSchool Group, through an independent software vendor partnership agreement to integrate ScholarChip applications with PowerSchool's learning management dashboard.

Under the new partnership, teachers and administrators can enter ScholarChip's portal and access its suite of school safety and operations applications directly on the PowerSchool dashboard. The single sign-on for PowerSchool gives access to ScholarChip's smart ID card issuance for students and staff, building and classroom attendance, visitor management and tracking, cafeteria POS, door access, paperless referrals, and behavior intervention and tracking.

"Our partnership creates an incredible convenience to schools, counties and states that use PowerSchool," says Maged Atiya, CEO and CTO at ScholarChip. "It is a natural progression in ScholarChip's evolution as the K-12 standard for integrated school safety and operations systems."

PowerSchool is an education technology platform designed for the K-12 market that provides online, digital classroom solutions. The platform includes student information and learning management systems, registration and school choice, assessment and analytics, and special-education case management. The platform also enables parents and students to access real-time information regarding grades, attendance, assignments, scores and comments.

"This partnership is a perfect fit for our customer base," says Karin Holtz, VP of Alliances and Business Development at PowerSchool. "Collaborating to create a seamless integration for schools and districts to manage school safety and operations processes will improve staff efficiency, allowing educators to spend more time in the classroom and less time on administrative tasks. ScholarChip's solutions complement our strategic focus on providing an easy-to-use, engaging, and comprehensive solution for all K-12 school and district needs inside and outside of the classroom."

The ScholarChip plug-in is available free of charge for PowerSchool version 8.7 or later as part of PowerSchool's Independent Software Vendor Partner program. The partner program enables members to jointly develop new functionality to extend the student information system with application programming interface (API) tools provided by PowerSchool.

The one-card formula doesn't just suit college campuses, it can also be applied to other verticals and K12 environments to refine identity management processes.

Despite a large portion of Heartland OneCard's business residing on collegiate campuses, the company also works to meet the needs of corporate, preparatory and academy campuses. One of the company's more recent projects can be found at Oaks Christian School -- a private, college preparatory school located in Westlake Village, Calif.

Since opening its doors in 2000, Oaks Christian has experienced rapid growth on campus. The student body is also thriving, with nearly 500 students currently enrolled in grades 5 through 8 and a further 1,000 students in grades 9 through 12.

To meet the school's expansions, Oaks Christian was intent on providing a better overall student experience, with its leadership determining that a comprehensive campus card system could help them achieve that goal. The school's previous ID card system lacked cohesion and was set up to operate multiple individual solutions independently, such as using a standard retail gift card for purchases in the school's dining facilities. The goal was to bring the existing systems and functions together into a single program and add further functionality to the ID, create a positive impact on student services and help consolidate existing systems.

Oaks Christian was searching for a partner to help the campus provide new services to students and found the ideal fit with Heartland. "OneCard has enabled us to operate more efficiently while increasing services," says Darrell Parker, Director of Information Systems at Oaks Christian School. "They have been there for us every step of the way and we are happy we’ve chosen Heartland as our campus card partner.”

In the first phase of implementation, Oaks Christian launched a new, redesigned ID card, as well as added the ability for the new credential to be used in the school's dining facilities and bookstore to make purchases. Students are also able to pay for on-campus printing with the new credentials through an integration with PaperCut.

The Oaks Christian dining facilities were also in need of a new point-of-sale (POS) solution. The school wanted to implement new terminals with a fresh look, sleeker profile, and that was reflective of the campus’ use of new technology. The school opted to deploy 18 OneCard Tablet POS terminals making Oaks Christian the first campus of its kind to use tablet POS as its standard terminals.

Another area in need of overhaul was account management. It was reported that with the previous system some parents found it difficult to add funds to their student’s account to then make purchases on campus. The first upgrade made to the school’s old system was the implementation of OneWeb, OneCard’s online account management portal. With OneWeb, parents can not only add funds to their student's account, but the students themselves are able to check their balances, view transactions and connect with their OneCard.

Oaks Christian has also embraced OneCard Mobile, Heartland's mobile app that acts as a student's single point of access to campus services. OneCard Mobile allows students to use their smartphone as a virtual ID card, to make purchases and to manage their OneCard account.

Future plans for the OneCard at Oaks Christian include possible integration with campus vending machines, concession stand purchases at athletic events and payments at the school box office for event ticketing.

BadgePass, Inc. has acquired the business and assets of Boomerang Payment Solutions, LLC, as part of a deal that will bring new financial aid disbursement capabilities to the BadgePass portfolio.

Boomerang Payment Solutions’ primary product offering, Veita, enables institutions to make excess financial aid disbursements on a debit MasterCard which can also serve as the student's campus ID card.

Campuses using BadgePass's TotalCard one card system can now benefit from the acquisition by reducing disbursement time and expenses, while granting students the freedom and flexibility of MasterCard purchasing -- in addition to TotalCard platform's other features including access control, meal plan management and ID validation.

“We are looking forward to working with existing customers using the Veita system and bringing them the full suite of features that TotalCard has to offer,” says Lindsay Martin-Nez, vice president of sales and marketing for BadgePass. “We know that many of our current and future customers will be excited to explore the option of integrated financial aid disbursement!”

The details of the transaction have been kept confidential.

A new initiative at the University of Virginia will enable students to purchase fresh, locally grown food using Virginia's University ID and "Plus Dollars" that are included in student meal plans.

According to the Cavalier Daily, the initiative is set to begin fall 2016 and will be led by Greens to Grounds -- a non-profit, student-run agricultural organization dedicated to making fresh, local food available to students. Together with UVA dining services, the initiative will enable the use of Plus Dollars to purchase the products. Students can also place their orders for these products online.

Students will be able to choose food offerings in pre-built snack boxes and produce boxes, with menus being updated every week. These healthy and nutritious base packages typically cost no more than $10. Boxes will contain a variety of seasonal vegetables and fruits, as well as dairy and bread items.

The initiative is also bolstering the campus' relationship with its surrounding community. Local Food Hub, a Charlottesville, Virginia-based organization that partners with Virginia farmers to increase community access to local food, is working with Greens to Grounds to plan what food will be included in the student food boxes.

UVA's Plus Dollars are included in student meal plans and are available for use at on-campus, university-run dining locations. The funds are also untaxed. Unused funds transfer from the Fall to the Spring semester, but are non-refundable or transferable to a new academic year. Plus Dollars can be used for food purchases only, and are only available to students who have purchased a UVA meal plan.

Eastern Michigan University is considering privatizing its dining services after deciding to open a formal RFP for food-service vendors as part of a move that could bring millions of dollars of food-service investment to campus facilities.

In a statement to students and staff, Eastern Michigan University's interim president, Don Loppnow, stated that partnering with an outside vendor would bring the campus enough funding to significantly expand and upgrade dining facilities while maintaining high quality food offerings and services. Without the change, he says, such an investment would not be possible.

According to a report from Michigan Radio, EMU's Board of Regents will consider the proposal, which is said to also include food trucks and a campus farmers market, at a meeting later this month. Despite the changeover, the university has stated that current food-service workers would remain employees of the university.

The proposed move to a food-service vendor has been met with skepticism from a group of students, faculty and food-service employees who have motioned for the university to reconsider the move.

Outsourcing food food service would bring EMU in line with a majority of US institutions, and is seen as way for the university to better focus on its core mission. "It is important to note that Eastern’s overarching institutional priority is to provide our students with a solid educational and research experience," the university's statement read. "While our current food services operation and employees do an excellent job, food services is simply not the university’s core mission. Educating students is."

Here's Eastern Michigan's full Request for Proposals document.

Sodexo, food service provider for college campuses, and mobile commerce application for campus dining, Tapingo, have partnered to bring mobile ordering to Sodexo campus clients across North America.

Together with Tapingo’s native apps, students, faculty, staff and community members at Sodexo-served campuses will be able to order food through their campus dining program and choose from either pick-up or delivery options. The partnership is intended to both enhance the student experience by providing more convenient dining options, as well as enable Sodexo’s campus dining operations to function more efficiently.

“We work with institutions that prioritize quality of life for students, faculty, and staff, and Tapingo is the only solution that can meet Sodexo’s goals of positively transforming campus dining,” says Bill Lacey, senior vice president at Sodexo. “This partnership provides our campuses with an exciting, innovative service that not only increases satisfaction, but also empowers community members to enjoy healthy, high-quality meals and snacks that suit their on-the-go lifestyles.”

Serving as the campus dining provider to more than 850 colleges and universities across the United States and Canada, Sodexo will roll out the Tapingo service to campuses in both countries. During the fall 2016 semester, Tapingo will include top Sodexo campuses in its deployment schedule, which is expected to see 100 campuses join the Tapingo network. The move will effectively extend Tapingo’s reach to 25% of major four-year U.S. universities.

“We’re thrilled to partner with a company of Sodexo’s caliber and reputation,” says Jeff Hardy, Tapingo’s Chief Business Officer. “We’ve made it our mission to make buying better on every college in America. Students and faculty are more strapped for time than ever, and we want to give them that time back. We look forward to bringing our technology and insights to Sodexo campuses across the country.”

Since its founding in 2012, Tapingo has leveraged mobile technology to improve the buying experience and solve a key problem for students: lack of time. Tapingo now estimates that it processes tens of thousands of transactions daily.

The University of North Alabama is moving forward with its change in food-service vendor, partnering with Chartwells and ending a 39-year affiliation with Sodexo.

According to a report from the Times Daily, the university's Board of Trustees voted unanimously giving the university administration the authority to finalize a 10-year contract with Chartwells. University officials say that food service is the largest contract at North Alabama, and that Chartwells scored the highest out of the vendors considered both in terms of brands and concepts, as well as in cost to students and the university. The university's new contract with Chartwells took effect June 1.

The report reveals that Chartwells has proposed $6.6 million in capital investment to renovate and build out campus facilities for new food vendors in addition to keeping mainstays like Starbucks and Chick-fil-a.

UNA Vice President of Business and Financial Affairs, Clinton Carter, said in a statement to the Times Daily that Chartwells' proposal scored 32 out of 35 in the food-service committee review, while Sodexo scored a 21 out of 35. Aramark also submitted a proposal for the university's food service contract, though no scores were reported.

The Times Daily report also reveals that that UNA's proposed agreement with Chartwells guarantees a minimum of $4 million in commission for the university, with an 8% commission on sales up to $8 million. Should the university surpass that mark, the commission will rise to 11% for any sales made beyond $8 million total. UNA's Carter says that current food sales at UNA hover at around $5.9 million. Chartwells also proposed $52,500 annually in catering, and a $20,000 donation to athletics.

Payment solution provider, Apriva, completed EMV certification for a new unattended card reader that can accept both campus card payments as well as EMV chip-enabled bankcards.

The BV1000 card reader, developed by Globalcom Engineering, connects through the Apriva Gateway to enable secure payment options in self-service retail environments such as parking garages and car washes. The device features a rugged design for outdoor use and can withstand extreme weather conditions.

“Our recent EMV certification for the BV1000 device over Apriva’s Gateway provides a unique opportunity for campus environments," says Russ Palay, Product Director, Market Solutions at Apriva. "Campuses can offer an EMV solution for their unattended parking garages, as well as other unattended or self-service environments."

As the move to EMV progresses, it is essential that campuses migrate to EMV-accepting payment terminals in all areas where the institution functions as a merchant. "Providing an EMV solution to the campus market for these unattended environments is critical, not only to adhering to card association directives around chip card acceptance, but also to data security protection requirements securely processing student, staff, and visitor card data," explains Palay.

Apriva also offers its Integration Services Program, which enables Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and mobile and embedded developers to easily implement credit, debit, EBT, loyalty and closed-loop payment processing into their solutions. Once integrated, applications and POS solutions can communicate with the Apriva Gateway over a wired or wireless network.

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