Apple’s recent iPhone 6 launch was a big deal for tech junkies the world over, but could this latest iPhone release redefine the campus card as we know it? Could the iPhone 6 actually replace the ID card altogether?

It’s undeniable that students are using their mobile devices to facilitate their daily activities, and the university campus is a natural extension of this fact. Robert Huber, campus card industry business consultant, echoes this sentiment and sees a shift toward a more mobile campus in the near future.

In a recent release on Huber’s website, he explains that the decades-old practice of colleges and universities issuing plastic cards and badges to their students may be subject to change.

With more advanced hardware and software being included in the iPhone 6 and other similar devices, Huber believes that the transition to digital credentials – using smart phones fro both secure authentication and payments – may be closer than we thought.

“Most college students today purchase their own smartphones and manage their accounts via the web,” says Huber. “Using their phones as their new campus card will invariably be seen as an added convenience and customer benefit by most students.”

Now, however, Huber expects to see a wave of campuses shifting from plastic cards to user-provided virtual credentials within five years.

Huber also lists the vital components of the iPhone 6 that are similar to many campus cards:

• Apple Pay processes payments via a mobile credential.
• Data encryption protects the privacy of personal credit card numbers.
• An internal Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip (similar to Bluetooth Smart) is a more secure payment technology than traditional mag stripe cards.

Huber is planning to delve deeper into this concept in his “Campus Card Industry Forecast” to be released in December.