The College ID Card

Call it a badge of courage, rite of passage or simply a cool thing to have in a wallet. The college ID card is actually more than that.

Now way back in the day, the ID card might have your picture on it or not, and the only purpose of having one was to see if you were allowed to use the swimming pool at a college or university. Boy, has that changed. Now they do everything from allowing your son to pay for his college meals, borrow sports equipment, and gain access to locked buildings. And because the cards are so sophisticated, they also cost more to replace. So no longer are we in the era of $5.00 replacements for ID cards. Now, you’re lucky if you pay less than $20.00 for a replacement card. But in all honesty, this makes sense.

When cards can do so much, that means they also expose the college and your student to the potential for theft and reduced security. At schools where only students, staff and faculty can access buildings for example, finding an ID card means someone can eat for free in the cafeteria, or gain access in the evening to locked buildings with students and faculty inside. Colleges don’t take this lightly. In many schools I’ve visited, students staff and faculty have to wear their ID cards to get past security: no card, no access. If for no other reason than the simple economics of replacing it, urge your student to guard his or her ID carefully.

There’s another aspect of the college ID card, which is identity: identity with their new college or university. It’s common for students to receive their student ID card at orientation that occurs in June two months or more before classes begin. College do this for many reasons, but one of them is to solidify their connection of new student to their college or university. Think about it. When high school friends ask your daughter where she’s going to school, she wants to say “I’m going to State,” and show them her ID card and probably a shirt she bought from the bookstore. Colleges love that, because it strengthens the connection of students to the institution. It works the other way, too. College staff and faculty feel connected with students as part of the same college or university community. I mean, have you seen Big 10 schools and they way everybody wears stuff from those schools all the time? It’s the same way with their ID cards; they’re a badge of honor and a symbol of membership.

But you know what? Every student ID card can be a badge of honor. Pass than on to your student.