So, I don't know how many people know this because I just found out. But, apparently when you select the preference in HigherOne to have your refund transferred to your personal bank account, they charge you 25$. That was a little frustrating piece of information.

There's a whole list of fees here:

https://www.higheroneaccount.com/info/outfees.jsp

And, of course, they make it SO hard to find this information. You have to dig for it.

According to people in Student Business Services, you can opt out of the whole thing by simply cancelling your HigherOne account, then reopening it without selecting a preference. After 21 days, they will automatically send you a check and you've bypassed the whole process. Of course, that tacks on what is essentially an extra month of waiting time.

So you can either 1)make an account with HigherOne where debit means credit and there are a lot of silly fees, 2)have your refund transferred to your bank and lose 25$, or 3)opt out of the whole thing in favor of a slow process.

For something that was supposed to be an improvement, I feel like I'm choosing the lesser of 3 evils.

But it looks like I'll just be losing 25$ because I'm not comfortable with either of the other options.