Student government members at Drew University, Madison, N.J. have successfully negotiated with a school administrator to eliminate the $25 fee for damaged, worn out or defective campus ID cards. Students will still have to pay for lost ID cards.

“We are now replacing damaged cards at no cost,” said Howard Buxbaum, the school’s vice president of finance and business affairs. “We had a meeting several weeks ago with Student Government and they made a strong case that worn out [and] damaged cards should be a university responsibility,” he added.

“For as long as I can remember, members of the Drew community were upset with the $25 replacement fee,” said Student Government President Frank Barbosa. “Student Government heard numerous complaints about this issue in recent weeks and resolved to remedy it in any way possible.”

Barbosa said negotiations “were much smoother than expected. At the time I was pretty sure that no one would support removing the fee. At most I expected them to lower the fee rather than remove it completely. However, they were very receptive to the idea. They did recognize that sometimes students can’t control whether a card breaks or wears out, and for that reason students shouldn’t be punished with a steep replacement fee.”

Read more here.