Lonely is the life of an NIU tuition envelope.

Instead of making a home in DeKalb among NIU students and university offices, tuition payments ultimately travel to an address in Chicago.

That location – 75 Remittance Drive, Suite 3086 – is printed on the NIU-supplied envelopes used to mail personal tuition payments.

“Students aren’t mandated to just send their payments there,” NIU Bursar Kinga Mauger said. “We request that they are sent there because it’s processed more quickly.”

The address is that of Northern Trust, a financial institution founded in 1889. According to northerntrust.com, the bank’s financial performance includes $39.5 billion in banking assets, $1.45 trillion in assets under administration and more than $300 billion in assets under investment management.

In other words, NIU students’ tuition money has plenty of company at its Chicago home.

“That money is going to a lock box directly to the bank to process it for us,” Mauger said. “It’s a more cost-effective way of processing the payments.”

The bursar said Northern Trust offers ample protection for payments.

“Their security far exceeds ours,” she said. “It’s one of the major banks in downtown Chicago. They can process through technology, where a lot of machines read the checks and process them electronically with scanners and readers, which we don’t have.”

NIU’s agreement with Northern Trust is relatively new. NIU handled payments itself until spring 2001.

Before the switch, “our equipment was obsolete and breaking down,” said Kathe Shinhan, NIU’s associate vice president of financial affairs. To continue operations on campus, NIU would have had to buy expensive new equipment and hire more staff to operate the new system.

After searching, “Northern Trust came out as being the best option,” she said. “There’s money saved by mailing it directly there. One definite advantage is we get this money sooner.”

Shinhan could not quantify exactly how much money is saved, but it is a significant amount.

The NIU Bursar’s Office has 25 staff members, but only four process payments and perform cashiering duties, Mauger said. When the office receives a student’s tuition payment, NIU has to pay to transport the money using an armored car service.

Mauger said students many other options to make tuition payments. Students can mail a payment directly to the Bursar’s Office, pay online with a credit card or pay in person at the Bursar’s Office or cashiering office.

The Bursar’s Office is located at Swen Parson Hall, Room 235.