The Wake

Jeff Siple, 20, needed to replace his U Card twice in little more than a year and a half as a student at the University of Minnesota. The first time the U Card Office replaced the card for free, which was only a year after receiving his first card; the horizontal stripes showed normal “wear and tear.” The second time his card quit working, the ‘U’ wasn’t so generous about the vertical wear stripes. It turns out his U Card rubbed against the raised numbers on the credit card in his wallet. Like thousands every year, Siple had to pay a fee to have his card replaced.

“I guess I can see why they made me pay for it, but $15 still seems pretty ridiculous,” Siple said.

It’s only a rectangular piece of plastic, but every student needs one.

Each card is used for many things around campus, like checking out books at the library, accessing the Rec. Center and St. Paul Gym, using University laundry machines, accessing computer labs: it’s a lunch ticket at residence dining halls and the obvious one, an identification card.

You virtually can’t go anywhere on campus without your U Card.

When a card is lost, stolen or just plain worn out, a student may have to step up and pay the $15 fee. This might not seem like a lot in comparison to tuition bills or the cost of books, but some students find the fee bordering on extortion for a chunk of plastic.

The estimated cost of making a card is about 30 cents, said one representative from the company that sells systems that produce ID cards to the University of Minnesota and other schools and universities.

“The reason they charge that fee is so that the card has some perceived value,” said Laura Clark, marketing specialist at Identisys, which is the company providing the University’s card producing system.

The University has expensive card printers and cameras to enhance the speed and quality of card production.

When asked about the difference in cost versus fee, Shirley Everson, director of the U Card Office, said each card has several other costs built into it, including the cost of staff salaries. The University also purchases cards with a pre-printed background design in order to speed up the cost of production.

“Our cards aren’t 30 cents,” Everson said.

The fee for a new U card has been the same since the system changed in 1999 from an old white ID card to the current high-tech card system. The Office of the Registrar charged $10 for replacement cards when they handled the ID system. Everson said it’s good to keep the fees standard.

“I don’t see the fee changing in the near future,” Everson said.

The U Card Office produces about 16,400 brand new cards a year for faculty, staff and incoming students free of charge. They also replace about 4,000 cards each year, but not every replacement card is charged the $15 fee. Even if each new card costs 50 cents to make, which is more than the average plastic ID card - and generously assuming that half of the replacement cards are produced without charging the fee - the cost of producing those cards is an estimated $9,000. Charging the $15 fee to only half of the students, faculty and staff needing replacement cards brings in about $30,000. This means the U Card Office could make a very rough estimate of $21,000 on the fees of replacement cards alone.

The U Card is also sponsored in part by TCF Bank, if you remember the lovely promo from freshman orientation. The sponsorship on the card offsets the cost of the system, allowing the U Card Office to function without charging other departments quarterly for use or getting financial support from hefty student services fees. TCF began the sponsorship of the U Card back in 1995 and renewed it again last December after an extensive bidding process with many major banks in the area. TCF holds the sponsorship until the next cycle of bids in 2013.

A U Card will be replaced for a fee if it shows wear from keys or change, if it has been chewed on or used to scrape windows. Everson recommends that students use common sense when carrying the essential U Card.

“You wouldn’t put your credit card on the dash of your car when it’s hot,” Everson said. “Just don’t abuse it.”

The U Card Office distributes white Tyvek sleeves, made by DuPont, with each new U Card, and supplies replacements for free. The sleeves are thin, flexible and protect the card from scratching and can prevent having to replace cards as often, Everson said.

One student believes cards should be replaced yearly or once every two years because cards commonly break in half and suffer wear in card readers.

“It seems like back in high school they were only $1.” Adam Danczyk, 20, said, “It’s another way for them to rob us blind.”