Card, mobile credential, payment and security
A recent humor column in the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily newspaper takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the importance of declining balance and flex bucks on college campuses.
The author describes a fictional casino set up by the University of Virginia that deals exclusively in Flex Dollars. It goes something like this:
UVA's on-campus ‘Flex Dollar Casino’ operates entirely off of students’ Flex Dollars – the campus currency usually meant for food and printing.
The university tracks each student’s gaming activity through their campus ID card usage. One card systems identify heavy gamblers and, like Las Vegas casinos, single them out for perks and incentives.
The casino offers slot machines, poker tables, and blackjack all using Flex. Students flock there hoping to win enough for a few extra sushi bowls, but they often end up trapped in an endless gambling spiral.
Meanwhile, classes sit empty, and professors have abandoned lecturing for day-gambling.
The university tracks each student’s gaming activity through their campus ID card usage. One card systems identify heavy gamblers and, like Las Vegas casinos, single them out for perks and incentives to keep them coming back.
In an extreme case, one student who lost all his Flex Dollars to the casino turned to a life of crime stealing campus ID cards from other dorm residents.
This casino-fueled culture has fundamentally reshaped the University. Academics have given way to gambling education and the bookstore only stocks Flex-investment guides. The once-prestigious campus has fully embraced its new identity: a high-stakes gambler’s paradise where only the rich (in Flex) survive.
Check out the full article here.
Community colleges are facing a growing crisis as masses of 'bot students' enroll in online courses to fraudulently collect financial aid. The numbers are staggering. In California, the state’s chancellor’s office estimates that 25% of applicants to its community colleges are bots.
Some create totally fake personas. Others steal identities or even re-enroll using former student’s ID numbers.
Since the pandemic shifted more courses online, bots have increasingly targeted community colleges, which have open admissions policies and disburse significant financial aid. In California, more than $11 million was paid out to fake students in 2024, more than double the previous year.
These bots – controlled by fraud rings – pose as real students, often using AI to submit coursework so that they can stay enrolled just long enough to receive the aid.
An article in the Voice of San Diego explores the issue in depth, explaining that some professors initially celebrated full classes before discovering most of their students were fake.
These bots – controlled by fraud rings – pose as real students, often using AI to submit coursework so that they can stay enrolled just long enough to receive the aid.
It has transformed teaching into detective work.
Professors now scrutinize assignments and enrollment behavior to determine if students are real. They look for odd language in emails and AI-generated coursework as red flags.
The situation is especially severe in large online courses. Teachers spend the first weeks of classes identifying and dropping fake students before aid disbursements begin in week three. But they face a Catch-22. If real students don’t refill those open seats, the courses may be cancelled due to low enrollment, and the instructor could lose pay or even their position.
In some cases bots used student ID numbers and names from former students to re-enroll and collect aid.
One professor profiled in the Voice of San Diego article uncovered identity theft cases where bots used student ID numbers and names from former students to re-enroll and collect aid.
While the number of bot applicants is massive at one in four, the actual dollar volume stolen does not really move the needle. In California, more than $3 billion was disbursed in state and federal financial aid last year, so an $11 million dollar loss is manageable.
But this specific fraud approach is new as are the AI tools enabling it. As the power of AI and these bot students grow exponentially, the ability for institutions to keep up is in question.
Even if the financial aid losses are not yet immense, the problem already is. The cost is significant in both lost faculty time and reduced trust in institutions.
Additionally, there is a high cost to combatting this cybercrime and purging fake students.
Between September 2021 and January 2024, there were 900,000 fraudulent applications submitted to California Community Colleges, according to CalMatters.
Stopping that many bot students is a tall and costly order.
In this episode of CampusIDNews Chats, ColorID’s Danny Smith discusses the evolving landscape of identity management systems in higher education. He describes his concept of "critical identity infrastructure," which encompasses credentials, reader infrastructure, and the software used to manage identities.
This system typically resides within a one-card system, but Smith suggests a shift to a more open, agnostic platform. He says that by doing so, the identity infrastructure would allow for easier integration with new cloud-based solutions and greater flexibility for universities to adopt new technologies.
In this architecture, identity management is handled by an agnostic platform that pulls data from central authority sources like PeopleSoft or Banner.
He argues that traditional systems often create roadblocks by locking campuses into proprietary solutions, making it difficult to integrate new technologies without seeking permission from the service providers.
In this vision – what ColorID is calling the “Modern Campus” – identity management is handled by an agnostic platform that pulls data from central authority sources like Peoplesoft or Banner. It sits in between these sources and manages the credentials that power other applications and services on the campus. He says this allows institutions to be agile as they adopt new technologies, such as mobile credentials, biometrics, and cloud-based solutions.
Check out the full video by clicking on the image at the top of this page.
Transcript
Today on CampusIDNews Chats, we've got Danny Smith, co-founder, co-owner of Color ID, to talk about something that we kind of hit on about a month ago when we first spoke about their acquisition requirements.
And it's the idea, Danny, that you brought up about taking the identity management side of what we do with our campus credential systems and moving it from the transaction system and the access control system into a dedicated space.
So, critical needs identity infrastructure is something that you said multiple times when you talked. So, let's go over that a little bit.
Yeah, no, no, that's cool.
You know, critical identity infrastructure, that's how I define it.
And that's your credentials, your reader infrastructure, and then the software that you use to manage people, the credentials, and then also you have connections to downstream systems that the credential will authenticate with to access to those type services or solutions.
Typically you'll see the critical identity infrastructure is housed or resides within the one-part system. You will see some cases where that's in an access control system, but in higher education, primarily, it would be in the one-part system.
And so, you know, you can absolutely take the identity to the one-part system, and actually, we strongly recommend that as a future forward pathway to having a more agnostic approach, and a more enabled approach to be able to foster a lot of innovation and collaboration, and just a future forward approach that we're really excited about.
How does that specifically foster collaboration?
What you see as it exists right now is that not all of the one-part systems, but some of the one-part systems out there will use proprietary key sets that they deploy in the reader infrastructure and also in the credentials, and that makes the credentials and the critical identity infrastructure unique to those one-part systems.
And so, if you want to be able to integrate new solutions, cloud-based solutions that are coming in, justified ways, you need to have a data platform that's open to racist technology and innovation.
And the way it exists now is that you would have to go to the one-part system and say, hey, we found a new solution that we think would benefit our campus, it provides whatever value to the university, and then you have to ask for integration to a financial provider or the one-part provider.
And so, to me, if you're in that position, if you're having to ask permission to integrate solutions to a third-party provider, then that is a sign you've lost control of your infrastructure.
And so, it's not we're saying that what they're doing is malicious, it may be opportunistic, but what we're saying is that there's a better way to prove that it's going to help the university to be more modern in their approach to adopting new and modern technology.
So, we're taking it out of systems that it's been in for a long time in this new vision. Where does it go? What do you do with that function that's kind of crucial?
Yeah, no, it's an excellent question. You know, just, you have to figure this and kind of visualize the way that it works.
Is that you take the agnostic integration platform and it sits underneath and is connected to your authority source, which is what Peoplesoft or Banner, and it would pull in all these different integrations into the platform.
And then at that time, all the credentials were issued and managed from that down to all the downstream systems, including the one-part system.
So, what would happen is that you would take the identity infrastructure out of the one-part system, it would go into the agnostic identification and management platform, and then the one-part system would become a consumer of identity and not the gatekeeper or the manager of identity.
And all the other systems would be a consumer of identity, including your PAC systems, the third-party systems that are outside of the one-part scope of their service.
I've heard you say a number of times that we've had these discussions that you think higher education is at a technological inflection. So, what do you think about that?
Well, I think the way that things have worked the past 30 years is certainly a lot different than where we're going.
And you can see just, a good example would be going from on-prem to cloud, from the emerging technologies that you see, from credentials when you've gone from a match right to the prox, to the smart cards, to mobile credentials, but then you have other biometrics.
Ultra Wideband is something that you're hearing out there a lot that's gonna be introduced.
And there's other open standard credentials like Aliro, PKOC, and things that people may not even have heard about, but you have to be prepared to be able to quickly adapt.
And when you talk about identity, the inflection point is that the technology's changing.
We've got cloud-based solutions that are coming in. You gotta be able to be agile, to be able to quickly move from one to another if that's what the university wants to do.
Are you starting to see traction with this? Is the message resonating?
It's absolutely going fantastic. I just, and really it's validation for what we're doing. I mean, we saw a need, we heard from the customers. Over the years, this is not something that we've seen.
This has been a problem for years when there's been a lot of fractionalization in the campuses, a lot of slow data movement, just a lot of problems that this helped solve.
And right now we have over 40 universities that have already signed up and are on the modern campus utilizing the Card Exchange cloud solution.
And then in addition to that, we've probably done 50 presentations in the last three to four weeks. And we have folks that are already signing up. It's in the PO approval process, I guess you'd call it.
But yeah, I know this is a movement, man. We're really, really excited about it. It's a good thing. And it's nice to be on the right side of history, I think.
You know, if you want to learn more about the modern campus and our approach, just feel free to reach out. You can reach out to me directly at Danny dot Smith at colorid.com or at salesatcolorid dot com directly.
And then typically what we do is we schedule a introductory call, learn a little bit more about your campus, and then from there, we can schedule out a demo to take a deep dive into the solution itself.
All right, Danny, thanks a million. Great to talk to you as always.
Higher education is facing a new reality. As enrollment numbers fluctuate and budgets contract, colleges and universities must either embrace data-driven decision-making or risk obsolescence. The implementation of sophisticated data analytics platforms has evolved from a mere advantage to an essential survival tool.
Modern universities compete not only through academic excellence but through operational innovation. This chasm between acknowledging data's importance and successfully implementing data-driven strategies threatens many institutions' viability. So much so that three important bodies in higher education, The Association for Institutional Research (AIR), EDUCAUSE, and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) created the Change with Analytics Playbook to showcase the power of data and analytics to make better decisions and fulfill their institutional missions.
Modern analytics platforms transform fragmented information – from financial metrics to student performance data – into actionable intelligence. These systems demolish traditional departmental barriers, revealing crucial patterns that drive institutional success.
Western Washington University implemented a comprehensive data system to pinpoint inefficiencies, predict enrollment trends, and allocate resources more effectively.
Western Washington University exemplifies this transformation. By implementing a comprehensive data system, the institution has revolutionized both its day-to-day operations and strategic planning. Viewing its operations through the lens of aggregated data, they have been able to pinpoint inefficiencies, predict enrollment trends, and allocate resources more effectively.
The sophistication of these platforms extends beyond mere data collection. Advanced analytics engines uncover subtle patterns invisible to human analysts, from student success indicators to optimal financial aid strategies. This capability transforms university administrators from reactive problem-solvers into strategic planners, anticipating and addressing challenges before they materialize.
In today's fiercely competitive academic landscape, where institutions vie for students, funding, and prestige, this predictive capability proves invaluable. Universities leveraging comprehensive data analytics navigate changes with evidence-based confidence while enhancing student outcomes. Here are some examples:
Strategic enrollment management: Universities can deploy predictive analytics to identify and recruit high-potential students, diversifying their applicant pools and strengthening incoming classes. College administrators face a paradoxical challenge: while the Common App and test-optional policies have led to a surge in applications, overall enrollment continues to decline, making it crucial for universities to leverage predictive data analytics to identify candidates most likely to succeed at their institutions.
Only 76% of full-time U.S. university students persist to their second year of college, but patterns in tuition payments, class attendance, and campus engagement can help.
Enhanced student success: Through sophisticated analysis of academic performance, campus engagement, and payment systems, institutions identify at-risk students early and intervene before they drop out.
Only 76% of full-time U.S. university students persist to their second year of college. Predictive analytics allow schools to examine patterns in tuition payments, class attendance, and campus engagement, enabling timely interventions like financial counseling or flexible payment plans.
Optimized resources and campus services: Comprehensive facility usage analysis optimizes everything from classroom scheduling to energy consumption, generating substantial cost savings while improving campus operations. Meal plan and campus commerce systems with real-time tracking and inventory management capabilities allow colleges to make data-driven decisions on everything from what snacks to offer at the rec center to seamlessly integrating reusable container programs into dining services.
Ian Ashworth, Director of Product Management at Transact Campus
The next decade will likely see a widening gap between institutions that successfully leverage data analytics and those that don't. While the implementation challenges are real, they're not insurmountable. As more universities bridge the gap between recognizing data's importance and actually deploying effective systems, they're discovering that the true value lies not in the technology itself, but in how it transforms decision-making and student outcomes.
Berkeley Dining expanded its Grubhub mobile ordering to allow both flex dollars and meal swipes at four on campus dining locations.
Previously, flex dollars could only be used to purchase food through the Grubhub app from off campus restaurants, but now both flex dollars and meal swipes can be used for pickup at campus restaurants.
Mobile ordering and pickup has reduced backup times from 45 to 20 minutes during the busy lunchtime period.
Berkeley Dining and Grubhub support the use of flex dollars from student, faculty, or staff meal plans at seven on campus locations. The use of meal swipes as a meal equivalency is supported at four locations.
According to an article in the Daily Californian, campus chef Andrew Fan, described a massive reduction in wait times and backlogs at The Eateries location.
He says the addition of mobile ordering and pickup has reduced backup times from 45 to 20 minutes during the busy lunchtime period.
“Before class gets out at 11:50 … orders start coming in, so it does give us a bit of a head start,” he says.
Of the 1,800 orders on a normal weekday, one-third are made using mobile ordering. The total number of orders, however, has not increased.
By linking their campus account to the Grubhub app, students can use their flex dollars to purchase from on and off campus restaurants. On campus pickup stations are centralized at the Uno Pizzeria location, allowing students to pick up orders from all the restaurants in the building.
Of the 1,800 orders on a normal weekday, Fan says about one-third are made using the Grubhub app. The total number of orders, however, has not increased with the introduction of mobile ordering.
Thus, it seems technology is streamlining the process of on campus dining at Berkeley, but it is not increasing the volume of diners or meals.
In the article, one student explains that mobile ordering has allowed him to “skip the line.” Before, he says, he would wait in line for 20 minutes to get his food, but now he can order and avoid the line.
“Now I can just order on Grubhub,” he says. “For the 20-minute wait time, I just sit down somewhere and do some homework.”
According to Berkeley Dining the process is simple.
Step 1: Download the Grubhub app and create your account
Step 2: Tap Account > Campus Dining > and find the University of California, Berkeley
Step 3: Select Add Affiliation > Select if you’re a student, faculty, staff, or guest
Step 4: Choose “Add Campus Card” and enter CalNet authentication*
Step 5: Once authenticated, the top menu will automatically display ‘‘Berkeley dining” locations first.
Step 6: On the “Select a payment method” screen choose from the drop-down menu:
Step 7: If picking up at a Berkeley Dining location, follow the “Grubhub Pickup” signs.
At the CampusIDNews booth (#113) in the NACCU exhibit hall, the CampusIDNews team is shooting short (5-8 minute) video interviews with campus leaders and exhibitors profiling things happening, shaping, or confronting their programs and our industry.
I would like to invite you to participate and share your insights with other NACCU members and higher ed professionals via our audience of 6,500+ subscribers. As a thank you, we'll give you a $50 gift card/poker chip.
Though it need not be earth shattering, we ask that you have something special you’d like to discuss – such as a new initiative, product launch, challenge, or other topic. Think of something your team has done or wrestled with that could be of interest to your peer institutions.
Grab your 15-minute slot using the calendar link below, think about your topic, and get ready to cash in on your $50 gift card/poker chip.
Exhibitors: We are also scheduling video interviews to take place in your booths, so please grab a slot via the calendar link below to let us share your message. Sadly, the $50 thanks you's are reserved for campus reps 🙂
Thanks for supporting NACCU and CampusIDNews.
See you in Las Vegas,
Chris Corum
Editor, CampusIDNews
[email protected]
*Note that the timeslots on the reservation calendar display in your time zone rather than the Las Vegas time zone (PDT). This is so your calendar and reminders will show the correct time when you are on site. Please keep that in mind as you select your timeslot.
Campus reps click here to reserve your time slotExhibitors click here to reserve your time slot
Allegion and Atrium announced a strategic alliance, whereby the “two companies are establishing a formal partnership to revolutionize access control, credentialing, and campus one card solutions,” says the Allegion press release.
The release is short on details, but it likely signals bigger news to come.
We are excited to partner with Allegion with an initial focus on accelerating mobile credential adoption.
The announcement focuses largely on mobile credential adoption, with verbiage like “this collaboration establishes a joint dedication to innovation as higher education institutions increasingly adopt a mobile first approach.”
Mobile, it would seem, will be the focus of this more formalized partnership.
Atrium President and CEO, Tammy Johnson, affirms this saying, “we are excited to partner with Allegion with an initial focus on accelerating mobile credential adoption.”
“Atrium has achieved remarkable success with their cloud native campus card solutions, offering campuses more partnerships and options with an open market approach that resonates within the industry,” says Mark Casey, vice president, National Electronics Sales at Allegion.
In a recent episode of the Higher Ed Geek Podcast, host Dustin Ramsdell spoke with Taran Lent, SVP of Product Development and Technology at Transact. With a career spanning 25 years in EdTech, Lent has unique insight into the opportunities and challenges institutions face today. The transition to cloud-based solutions, the increasing role of user experience in product development, and the emerging trends shaping the industry are just a few of the topics covered.
Lent emphasized that higher education is undergoing a significant transformation with the migration of enterprise systems to the cloud. Many institutions have relied on on-premise enterprise systems for over two decades, and these systems are deeply integrated into campus operations. Moving to the cloud presents numerous advantages, but it also requires campuses to rethink how they operate.
Institutions have historically built custom solutions with direct database access. In a cloud-based environment, such practices are no longer secure or compliant. Instead, newer integration technologies like APIs, event-driven architectures, and SDKs are becoming the standard. While these technologies offer greater efficiency and security, they also require a shift in how institutions develop and maintain their systems.
People will say, mobile first, and then you'll see somebody demonstrate software on a laptop or on a PC. That's not mobile first.
Beyond technology, cloud migration necessitates significant change management. Many business processes were designed years ago, often by individuals who are no longer at the institution, and may not be well documented. He highlights the importance of embracing business process reengineering to optimize workflows rather than merely replicating old processes in a new cloud environment.
When discussing how product development in has evolved, he points to the increasing focus on user experience. Today’s students have high expectations for digital experiences, and they expect university applications to be intuitive, aesthetically pleasing, and mobile-friendly.
Mobile-first design is becoming critical, but while many institutions claim to prioritize mobile-first development, they often design software with desktop users in mind. To truly embrace mobile-first principles, universities need to ensure that applications function seamlessly on smaller screens, making interactions as efficient as possible.
“People will say, mobile first, and then you'll see somebody demonstrate software on a laptop or on a PC,” says Lent. “That's not mobile first.”
The shift to cloud-based solutions has also changed software development methodologies. Traditional waterfall approaches, where updates were released once or twice a year, are being replaced by agile development and continuous delivery. Cloud environments allow for faster bug fixes, incremental enhancements, and more frequent feature rollouts.
Looking ahead, Lent identified three key trends shaping the future of higher education technology: biometrics, artificial intelligence (AI), and continued cloud adoption.
Click to hear the full interview
More episodes of the Higher Ed Geek podcast series are available online.
San Francisco State University students now have the option to add their campus ID to their preferred mobile device. Students, faculty, and staff can add this new version of the SFSU OneCard to their Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, or Samsung Wallet.
The project was completed with the help of SFSU’s transaction system provider, Transact.
Unlike many institutions, SFSU allows both the physical OneCard and the mobile credential to be used in tandem, so students don’t need to choose between the two credentials.
The mobile version supports all the same functions as the physical card with the exception of the Gator Pass transit program.
According to SFSU’s OneCard website, they “recommend you retain your physical OneCard as a back-up should you lose your mobile device.”
The mobile version supports all the same functions as the physical card – ID, library card, resident hall access, reprographics, meal plans, and Gator Dollars – with the exception of the Gator Pass transit program.
The Gator Pass allows SFSU students to access San Francisco’s public transit system in the same was as the city’s Clipper card – the all-in-one transit card for the Bay Area. It enables unlimited rides on many Bay Area transportation services.
To set-up the mobile credential, students must have a valid SFSU account and an approved photo.
The account consists of SFSU email access and multi-factor authentication login.
If an approved photo is already on file in the OneCard system, the user can proceed to download the mobile credential. If not, they must first go through the university’s online photo submission process.
Next, the user downloads the latest version of the Transact eAccounts app to enable mobile credential registration.
Finally, the credential is downloaded to the mobile device, and the user is ready to go.
An article in Southern Mississippi University’s student paper, addressed concerns over the perceived high cost of replacement ID cards.
“A scratched magnetic stripe on a Southern Miss student ID can cost $20, limiting access to dorms or meals,” begins the SM2 piece. “For many students, this price is an unexpected burden.”
Campus card and auxiliary service professionals understand that replacement cards cost the institution money, and they often serve as an important source of revenue to fund the card program.
To the students, however, the fees can seem onerous.
Two-thirds of institutions charge between $15 and $50 for replacement cards with the average hovering around $20.
The article provides a glimpse into the student perspective, and it can help card office managers better position the fees in student facing interactions and materials.
Here are some key points students made against the fees:
The author goes on to quote the Southern Miss website saying, student ID cards are permanent and must be reused throughout a student’s time at the university unless they purchase a new one.
But, the article says, students argue that the card is not strong enough to withstand normal use. “This (leaves) students questioning why the appearance is changing, but not the issue with the card’s durability.”
While the $20 replacement card fee may seem excessive to the article’s author, it is not out of the norm when compared to other campuses.
Two-thirds of institutions charge between $15 and $50 for replacement cards with the average hovering around $20, according to the NACCU 2023 Campus Profile Summary Report.
The issue isn’t the fee. It is the student perception of the fee.
That puts the Southern Miss card program in line with its peer organizations.
The issue, however, isn’t the fee. It is the student perception of the fee.
The lesson is to keep this perception in mind and be prepared to explain it in a way that students will understand. Acknowledge their concerns but provide ideas to protect the card and explain its crucial role on campus.
Consider ways to more proactively share this message at different touchpoints such as orientation, issuance, photo upload, website, signage, and social media. It may help ease student frustration, whether it is outward as in the Southern Miss case, or pent up as is likely the case at most institutions.
