Illinibucks Prompt
For this
prompt on Illinibucks, which are a fiat currency that the university gives each
student so that they can jump ahead of lines, I would hold some things
constant. What I would hold constant is that each student receives the same
amount of illinibucks, and that theoretically there are not enough illinibucks
so that nobody can use illinibucks at every event that they want to. I am also
going to assume that these illinibucks are used to skip the lines at sporting
events, classes, and food at the union. This would mean that some people could
cash in their illinibucks so that they could get into a sports game first,
class first, or even get their food quicker at Ko Fusion.
What I believe
would happen in this situation is that there would become a secondary market of
ilinibucks for students who would not use them. This would be students who do
not enjoy Ko Fusion, don’t care about going to class, and are not interested in
our teams sporting events. I would assume that if people wanted more
illinibucks they would be able to purchase them from the university. Also I would
assume that many people would use these illinibucks for different things. We do
not have the greatest sports team so I believe that a lot of people would
invest their illinibucks into trying to get better seats for a sports game. Also
some people do not care where they sit in class so they would use it for other
things. Some students need to sit close to see in class so I think that they
would need to spend more money on illinibucks so that they can see in class. I believe
that since these students have a disability they deserve proper accommodations
or else they would be at an unfair advantage. This would end up being a way
larger problem than it would have been previously thought as.
I
personally would either spend my illinibucks on food lines or just sell them to
other students. This is because I have no problems with sitting in the back of
the classroom and have little interests in our sports teams. If the
administered price for additional illinibucks was too low then everyone would
have them and use them on everything. This would cause too many students trying
to cut the lines at the same events and it would not be successful. On the
contrary if the administered price was too high for illinibucks too only the
richest students would be able to buy them so it would put students coming from
low income at a disadvantage and I find that to be very discriminating.
Overall I believe
that the concept of illinibucks would not work at all. The information that we
had was too vauge and one would not know how the odds of these illinibucks
would work at all. We can only make assumptions on these bucks from the limited
knowledge that we know. I believe that there is not enough of a market for
students to truly want them, and it would just lead to more problems. A better
example of a similar situation that I have seen is that of the “fast passes”
offered at six flags. This concept is where there are a finite number of early
passes that people can buy to cut lines and they are reasonably priced. If something
like this was introduced at the university I think it would be a lot more
successful than the illinibuck concept and would lead to a lot less possible
discrimination.
I wasn't clear on a few things you said. Are there lines at Illini sporting events or not? What did Kofusion have to do with this? I didn't get that part. I also wonder whether there is waiting for other things on campus that you didn't mention, like seeing a TA in a large class when there is a pending exam or seeing an academic advisor who has to approved a program of study when changing majors. The thought in this post is that if there are several of these sorts of things, why not have the Illinibucks alternative for one or two that the individual prioritizes.
ReplyDeleteYou discussed a resale market for these. But then you said it wouldn't work. The resale market, if it existed, would mean illinibucks do work. Of course, you could make them nontransferable - something like an electronic bank account where you can't transfer funds, but only spend them for approved purposes. So if you want to focus on the question, would having the Illinibucks be transferable help or hinder the system?
One last point. You might have tried in this post to ask - what is the purpose of this prompt? And then you might have provided a more earnest answer. That would make the exercise more valuable to you.
Sorry for being unclear on the Kofusion part. the reason that i brought that up was because it is one of the few food vendors inside the union so i thought that it would be appropriate for the illinibucks to be used their because this restaurant is inside the union and is not a private company. with the illini sporting events i believe that there are some lines, but there could be more. i believe that the illinibucks should not be transferrable because that would just cause more headache then help. i think that the point of this exercise was to open our thinking on new types of currency and how they create a market
DeleteIn response to both your and Professor Arvan's points, there are no lines at sporting events for the most part, it really depends on the game night. In general though, there are zero lines at sporting events on this campus.
ReplyDeleteChristopher makes some great points. While I do think the resale market actually would work if there was a fixed amount of currency that each student gets, some students will want more and thus will buy more from other students. There are really no lines to ever see a TA. When you need to meet an academic academic advisor during registration week, that is when IlliniBucks could be efficiently used.
You might want to consider at what time of the year does this currency fluctuate in value? Do we want these bucks more today or 3 months from now when finals are around the corner?
I feel that using Illinibucks at a sporting event could be valuable to students. Not only does the currency incentivize attending the games, it also brings attention to Illinois sports and creates better exposure: something Illinois athletics is desperate for.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to touch on the idea of class registration and the advantage that could provide some students. For upperclassman, students that are not James Scholars or Honors program students are able to register with the best known teachers and/or later start times to catch more sleep. For underclassmen, they can avoid early start times and register for easier geneds before they would normally fill their quota of students.
Perhaps cutting lines for food would provide very little incentive, but in a social or academic setting some scenarios may arise that Illinibucks could be advantageous.