Illinibucks
The concept of Illinibucks is an interesting proposal. Let's explore what it might bring to the "campus economy".
When thinking about pricing of Illinibucks, one must start with asking: "why would someone want it"? Here, I suggest, we start distinguishing between the use-cases where Illinibucks merely saves you time and where Illinibucks provides you utility in and of itself. For instance, using Illinibucks while waiting in line at ARC or at a cafeteria would fall under the former group; using Illinibucks to sign up for classes is the latter: for certain classes, without having a priority for registration, you are not likely to get a seat at all -- you either get your education, or not. The two cases are not mutually exclusive: when registering for a popular class, you will spend time refreshing the page checking for an empty seat.
The first case suggests that whether purchasing and using Illinibucks is worth it for you depends on the opportunity cost of not using it. As in other trade offs between work and leisure, the question to consider here is how much time you would save for more leisure or to do more work. This doesn't sound too different from how higher income naturally lets you save money to spend more time compounding your income -- if you're concerned about lines at the ARC, you could always buy a membership at a less crowded gym. From this perspective, the Illinibucks system isn't inherently bad, although it would be a bit concerning to have it as something endorsed by the University as an organization.
Where it gets worse is the second case under which you might not get the utility without Illinibucks at all. Would you want to pay your tuition only to learn that unless you purchase Illinibucks, all the seats in those popular GenEds you always dreamed of taking would go to the users of the wicked University credit system? I doubt that. When it comes to higher education in America, there already is a lot of funneling based on income; what we benefit from now, at least, is that past the tuition bills we all have equal access to opportunities on campus. It seems to me that Illinibucks would jeopardize even this bit of fairness.
On another note, I think that if there was a mechanism to skip a physical line en masse, it would annoy a lot of people. Even if we all knew about the mechanism and were able to pay for it, the anger from seeing people pass a long line you're standing in would contaminate the campus. Now that I have been thinking about this for the past half an hour, I can't envision anything but mass hysteria caused by Illinibucks.
Recently, I have read a bit about systems thinking, and the introduction of a new system of Illinibucks is alarming to me. But that's just me internalizing recently learned concepts.
When thinking about pricing of Illinibucks, one must start with asking: "why would someone want it"? Here, I suggest, we start distinguishing between the use-cases where Illinibucks merely saves you time and where Illinibucks provides you utility in and of itself. For instance, using Illinibucks while waiting in line at ARC or at a cafeteria would fall under the former group; using Illinibucks to sign up for classes is the latter: for certain classes, without having a priority for registration, you are not likely to get a seat at all -- you either get your education, or not. The two cases are not mutually exclusive: when registering for a popular class, you will spend time refreshing the page checking for an empty seat.
The first case suggests that whether purchasing and using Illinibucks is worth it for you depends on the opportunity cost of not using it. As in other trade offs between work and leisure, the question to consider here is how much time you would save for more leisure or to do more work. This doesn't sound too different from how higher income naturally lets you save money to spend more time compounding your income -- if you're concerned about lines at the ARC, you could always buy a membership at a less crowded gym. From this perspective, the Illinibucks system isn't inherently bad, although it would be a bit concerning to have it as something endorsed by the University as an organization.
Where it gets worse is the second case under which you might not get the utility without Illinibucks at all. Would you want to pay your tuition only to learn that unless you purchase Illinibucks, all the seats in those popular GenEds you always dreamed of taking would go to the users of the wicked University credit system? I doubt that. When it comes to higher education in America, there already is a lot of funneling based on income; what we benefit from now, at least, is that past the tuition bills we all have equal access to opportunities on campus. It seems to me that Illinibucks would jeopardize even this bit of fairness.
On another note, I think that if there was a mechanism to skip a physical line en masse, it would annoy a lot of people. Even if we all knew about the mechanism and were able to pay for it, the anger from seeing people pass a long line you're standing in would contaminate the campus. Now that I have been thinking about this for the past half an hour, I can't envision anything but mass hysteria caused by Illinibucks.
Recently, I have read a bit about systems thinking, and the introduction of a new system of Illinibucks is alarming to me. But that's just me internalizing recently learned concepts.
So, before commenting on the rest of the post, I think you misunderstood the original suggestion. There would be no paying for Illinibucks for students. They would be issued them - as another student wrote - the frequency and magnitude of that might matter in how they are used.
ReplyDeleteOn the waiting in line at the ARC or at meals, I'm guessing this is a time of day thing. Some times are very busy, so long lines. Other times are less busy. One question you might ask yourself is whether some of the demand can be moved from the very busy time to a less busy time and how that would work. Might the Illinibucks achieve that?
Regarding your criticism that people won't like others getting straight in while they have to wait, this clearly sounds like an issue of fairness. As you described it, the unequal treatment seem unfair. But in light of the previous paragraph, might you reconsider that point if each person can use their Illinibucks so on some days they are the ones who can get straight in, while on others days, they have to wait. Would that be fair or not?
On the course registration, imagine you would pay your Illinibucks to the department that offers the course in question and then they'd register you for that particular class, but you'd then have to go through the regular registration process for your other courses. Would that make for more efficiency or not? And would it be fair or not?