Students at college campuses may be rapidly swiping their student ID cards in order to spend what’s left of their meal plan purse. At colleges like DePaul University in Chicago, they either use the money before the end of term or they lose it.

DePaul students living on campus are required to purchase one of four meal plans their freshman year. The plans range from $1,030 a quarter to $1,517. According to the school’s student newspaper, The DePaulia, if the pre-deposited meal plan money isn’t spent by quarter’s end, the funds will be forfeited. They can’t be carried over to next term. 

Administrators at eduKan, a consortium of six Kansas colleges created to offer online courses, are using BioSig-ID, a software only biometric solution, to discourage cheating among students involved in the schools’ distance education programs. The technology enables the colleges to determine that the student taking the course and the test is the same student who registered for the course.

“We felt it was necessary to use technology to proactively deter cheating,” said eduKan CEO Mark Sarver. “We wanted to make sure that this built-in security measure would not be cumbersome or intrusive and be cost-effective.” 

Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and campus card service provider CardSmith have announced plans for an expansion and upgrade to the school’s campus ID card program.

The new Hawk Card will offer the university’s 9,000 students cashless access to an expanded range of campus facilities and services including the bookstore, dining venues, vending machines, print and copy services, mobile payments, campus offices and off-campus merchants. The card can also be used for facility and library privileges as well as a bank debit card. 

Tom Bell offers expertise to campus card directors

Paraphrasing a famous comedian, Tom Bell says that campus card programs ‘get no respect.’ This is despite the fact that if a school’s card program were suddenly to go away, he believes the university would practically shut down.

Bell considers himself an evangelist for the campus card industry and for the past 11-years he has been shouting the merits of campus cards. He’s still doing it today, but on his own and not as a part of Blackboard Transact, which first hired him in 2001 to help build the company’s then new campus card division. 

The British government has advised that schools will not be able to use students’ biometric data unless parents consent, reports politics.co.uk.

The government’s advice, released on Tuesday for consultation, was updated to include items from the newly enacted Freedoms Act 2012. This new advice will take effect in September 2013. 

U.S. Bank and Oakland Community College, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., have launched a combined campus ID and prepaid MasterCard program for the school’s 78,000 students and 788 staff members.

The new Raider One Card enables users access to various campus services, the ability to receive financial aid refunds and make purchases wherever debit a MasterCard is accepted. 

A high school in Tarpon Springs, Fla. recently sent out a mass email bearing student Social Security numbers. The school’s guidance counselor sent the email to Tarpon’s entire senior class of about 400 students and parents regarding the Bright Futures Scholarship program.

According to school officials, the message included two attachments that listed the student’s name and ID number which, in most cases, is his Social Security number.