Illinibucks on Campus

The implementation of “Illinibucks” on campus would be an interesting concept. We are under the assumption that the campus sets the price of the “Illinibucks”, so I would argue a few things come into pay to determine the price. I’m sure they consider how many students are enrolled (including undergrad and graduate students), the value of what the bucks are used for or the demand, and the cost to transfer over to the new system.

It is left up to interpretation, how the “Illlinibucks” are monitored and distributed. There are many different forms of distribution that could be practiced here, like at the beginning of the semester, beginning of the year, or throughout the semester. If the students had the opportunity to get more “Illinibucks” throughout the semester, then they would feel less stress to hold on to them. In contrast, If the bucks are distributed at on a single time basis for the semester or year, students might feel the need to hold onto them. In addition, it is important to know if the excess “Illinibucks” roll over to the next semester. On campus, the dining halls have a system in the meal plans where students can have money on their Icard that can be used to buy extra meals or food at campus snack shops. Extra money on student’s Icards will roll over to the next week and so on until the end of the semester. However, at the end of the semester, the extra credits expire and the value is lost. If this was implements with the “Illinibucks” then students would use then each semester to move to the head of the line.

If we used “Illinibucks” here, I would use them to get into popular classes that I know are harder to get into due to limited seats. Having the bucks would insure me a place in the front of the line to sign up for classes and I would have an earlier time stamp to sign up. Because of this, I would be able to get into some popular courses that I want to take before graduating. For example, I would like to get into the Women in Econ 490 course next year. This is a difficult course to get into unless you have an early time stamp to register.

In terms of price, the “Illinibucks” would need to be price correctly or issues would arise from the mistake. If the bucks are priced too low, then more students will be willing to buy them and more students will have the opportunity to jump to the front of the line. If this happens then there really isn’t a front of the line anymore. In contrast, if the “Illinibucks” are priced too high, then less or no students will be willing to buy then and the bucks will be useless to the campus.

Some other issues that might come from “Illinibucks” are reselling by studetns, replicating fake bucks, and getting started. The “Illinibucks” would need to be sold once and not be able to be transferred from one student to another. If this happened, this would create a second market and affect the success of the original market. The bucks would need to be credible and not duplicated. This shouldn’t be a major worry with technology. Lastly, getting the system started and thriving. It is commonly known “it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks”. In terms of the campus, I believe there would be friction from upper classmen like juniors, seniors, and graduate students. These students have been on campus awhile and may not adopt the new system. Also, these students will already have earlier time stamps because of their year status and GPAs. Freshmen and sophomore students will be more likely to use “Illinibucks” because they are new to the campus and do not know any different. If a system is in place when a student comes to campus, then they will be more likely to go with the flow then question it.