If you’ve got a suspicious bone in your body, this “Pride Card” thing at UND has probably tickled your worry bone. Well, it ends up being pretty simple: UND outsourced the jobs that pay you your financial aid excess. This was strictly a top-down decision, and even Student Government wasn’t contacted until after the fact.

We’re stuck with this for at least a year (deadline to withdraw before next year: April 3, 2009), so let’s get through this together. I’ve done a bit of homework on this already; everything I’ve written about the “Pride Card” is located here. But if you want the express treatment, here are your options for the fall:

1. Cancel down your financial aid to a net zero or less.
   If you really don’t want a whole bunch of loans down the line, consider cancelling the loan segments of your financial aid until you no longer have an excess — so that it just covers your tuition and fees. You then have the option of getting substantial amounts of that section of aid flipped over into Work-Study money, so you can earn it at the job of your choice.
2. Wait for a cheque.
   Provided you haven’t moved around since you registered for classes for the fall, HigherOne will mail your aid in a cheque, right at the edge of the legally required first 21 days of the semester. They’ll harass you with robo-calls, but the personal information they have on you will stay limited to what UND has given them. UND also gets hit with a $2.50 cheque processing fee, which isn’t passed onto you, so this is the stick-it-to-the-man option.
   If you have moved around since you’ve registered for classes, you’ll probably need to update your information in this gaggle of systems they’ve set up. UND says they will relay address changes from Campus Connection to HigherOne, but there’s no way to make sure that HigherOne will get it without bothering SAS to make sure they update your info for you. You can be sure of which address they’ll send the cheque to if you check your UND e-mail account — HigherOne will send the cheque by default to the same address as they sent the card to you, which is specified in an e-mail.
3. Register for direct deposit.
   Provided that the card actually found you (if it didn’t you have to ask Student Account Services to get you a new one set to your correct address before the end of September or there’s a $20 fee) — pull your “Pride Card” out of its envelope, go to the website, and type the number in. I’m told that they ask you for a username and password, and verification information (SSN, etc) of ambiguously specified extent.
   Once you pass this step and a bunch of begging, you have the option of printing out a direct deposit form.   Filling it out and mailing it in will put your banking info into HigherOne’s system.   If they have the account number when disbursement hits, it will go into your account in the normal 2-3 interbank processing period.   If you file for direct deposit after disbursement starts, you can bet on mailing and processing times delaying your deposit to the point that you may as well have waited for a cheque.
4. (Please don’t) Open a “OneAccount”
   For the handful of people out there without their own bank account, there is the final option of a “OneAccount.” This is where HigherOne makes most of their money on margins and fees, and as such is flat-out the worst option for students. If you don’t have a bank account elsewhere, just go down to University Federal Credit Union (on first floor in the Memorial Union) with $25 and two forms of ID, and get set up. You can get a debit Visa card from them, too.   Or you can go the other way and get your disbursement in cold, hard cash — after getting your disbursement by cheque or direct deposit, of course.
   That having been said,   there is the “option” of the “OneAccount”. You can sign up for it on the HigherOne site after your card is registered.   You’ll likely be asked for much more personal information.   HigherOne will then set up a checking account for you with a debit MasterCard (otherwise the card is just a glorified ID number), and a crapload of fees.   Remember to run all your purchases as “credit” at the checkout to avoid the $0.50 “debit” transaction fees, and check your account balance regularly to avoid the $29+ overdraft charges.   I’d avoid using the card at ATMs altogether, though they are setting up three no-fee machines on campus, if you’d like to get into a bad habit.