'ID swipe cards' replace money for students

ST. LOUIS -- Dan Morrison, a 23-year-old graduate student at the University of Missouri at Columbia, could conceivably finish out his school career without ever opening his wallet.\nLike about 13,000 other students at the campus, Morrison uses his student ID card, which is attached to something called an EZ account, to do everything from getting a burger to washing a load of clothes.\n"It's a real convenience," Morrison said of his ID-swipe card, which has the nickname because of a magnetic stripe on the back that records all the information campus accountants need to tote up charges on Morrison's account.\n"That's your ticket to about everything," Kiehn said of the student ID.\nAlong with enabling access to campus facilities, such as the library, dorm rooms and the recreation center, the ID card can be used to activate either an EZ charge or an Upfront account. The EZ charge is a typical charge account, only this one has a $400 limit. Kiehn said the university holds students -- and not their parents -- liable for the charges.\nThe Upfront account is a declining limit card, which works like a debit card. Cash is deposited into the account first, and then purchases are subtracted from the balance. Each of the accounts has to be set up in advance with the university.\n"The main reason we have it is for student convenience, so they don't have to handle cash," Kiehn notes.\nThe cards with accounts are now also usable in vending machines, washers and dryers, convenience stores and at the Burger King, Pizza Hut and Chick-Fil-A fast-food restaurants on campus.\nMorrison and his peers have to be aware of at least one potential problem with the cards, aside from controlling their buying urges. The cards do not require use of a PIN, which means that anyone who picks up a card can use it in places that don't require a signature or where a clerk won't look at the photo and the user to make sure they match.\nStudents at other college campuses, such as Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, don't have the same easy access systems as the University of Missouri students.\nMike Dunlap, Washington University controller, said students there still need cash for vending machines, laundry, some bookstores and food that is not part of a university meal plan.\n"It was not as successful as we had hoped it would be," he notes, adding that the cards themselves were expensive because of the microchips, and that they were not widely used by students.\nStill, Washington University administrators said that students needed change for washers and dryers and real cash for other purchases.\nGene Barton, associate vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Illinois, said state lawmakers effectively put the kibosh on using swipe cards for retail purchases on campus.