Benefits of Student, Faculty & Staff ID Cards at Colleges & Universities
Use a university student ID card to streamline your student accounts, food service, access control and more, while
maintaining a high level of security throughout your campus. A university student identification card helps you:
- Offer cashless food service and bookstore purchases
- Control student access to facilities and campus technology
- Manage university library and/or equipment checkout
- Visually identify university students, staff, and visitors at a glance
Benefits of Student Photo ID Cards at Your College or University
Today’s technology allows your university student photo identification cards to be multi-purpose cards. A single university identification card can be used for applications such as food service and university bookstore account management, access to computers and other technology, access control to athletic facilities, tracking library check-out, medical center ID, as well as at-a-glance photo ID.
In order to create ID cards in-house, you’ll need an ID card printer. Check out these tips on how to choose an ID card printer.
Offer Cashless University Sales
The push for efficient automated payment programs is creating demand for university student ID cards that store cash value and track account balance. The use of a magnetic stripe or smart chip allows schools to use university student identification cards as debit cards for campus food service, the university bookstore, parking, campus laundry facilities, and other on-campus retail venues. This automation makes the purchasing process fast and efficient by reducing lines and wait times, cutting back on labor needed to staff cafeterias and bookstores, and reducing the losses involved with cash transactions.
Debit cards are simply cards that are funded by traditional means such as checking accounts, funds transfers, credit cards, or cash and are used to deduct money from a non-bank account. Stored-value cards use a smart chip or mag stripe to store information about the funds that have been prepaid to the card.
Control Access to Technology and Areas of Your Campus Buildings
One of the keys to creating a safe campus is controlling who’s in your campus buildings. Using magnetic stripe, proximity card, or smart card technology, your university student ID cards can control access to your campus buildings, such as dorms, or even specific areas in your campus buildings, such as labs. An access control system will allow you to control who enters controlled areas.
A university ID card that includes a magnetic stripe, prox technology, or a smart chip can also control access to technology. For example, a student needing to use your university’s computer lab can use his student ID card to gain access to the IT building after regular class hours, scan it again to enter the lab, and then insert it into the computer in order to log on.
Manage Library and Equipment Checkout
One of the most common uses of university student ID cards is tracking university library check-out. Barcodes or magnetic stripes are typically used to track library assets. The same process can be used with other university assets such as audio/visual equipment or athletic equipment.
Allow Identification of University Students, Faculty, Staff & Visitors
An easy way to visually differentiate groups of people such as students, faculty, staff, and visitors from one another is to create identification cards of varying designs. The varying design may be subtle, such as a single bar of color, with different colors representing the different groups, or more obvious design variations, such as different background images. Varying the design of cards makes it easier to distinguish groups of people quickly or from a distance.