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Illinibucks


If the university gave each student an allocation of Illinibucks, it would incentivize students to use “pay” for what matters the most, also it would give the University  more information on what students want. Students would put their hypothetical money where their mouth is and in turn the university would be able to collect data on what students prefer. 

Illinibucks would primarily be used to register for classes earlier than others. Registering for classes can be a pain, even as a senior who has priority registration. Classes fill up extremely quickly and if you must change your schedule later it can be very difficult to get into classes. Allowing the ability to use your Illinibucks to get even earlier registration would ameliorate this situation slightly. It would allow students who truly need or want a certain class to allocate their Illinibucks to ensure they have a better chance of getting a seat in the class. This would be beneficial to freshmen who may be interested in a certain class or major, and juniors or seniors who need a specific class to stay on track to graduate. However, this doesn’t solve the problem when you have to change your schedule and most classes are full. Nearly every time after I register for classes, I slightly change my schedule. This is typically done because I find classes that are more interesting to me, or I have to change my classes around to get one specific class to fit in my schedule. Buying prioritized registration would not help in this situation because when changing classes, it would be too late for early registration to matter. It would also be worse if you paid for early registration in a class and then had to ultimately drop it. I’m not sure if the University would be able to create some kind of return policy. Currently some students register for classes just to hold a spot, and if there was a refund for prioritized registration the problem would get worse. I think even more students would register for classes they might not fully want to be in.

When freshman first come here they are given a random time slot to choose dorm to live in. This never applied to me because I lived in a private certified dorm as a freshman,  but some new students prefer certain dorms to another. Illinibucks could be used to choose exactly what dorm you live in or simply increase the odds of getting a certain building. For freshman, there are so many classes to choose from that it may be better to allocate Illinibucks towards something other than class registration. 

I think one of the biggest benefits of an Illinibucks program is that the university could gain a significant amount of information. The university could see what classes students want badly enough to allocate some Illinibucks towards. The university could also create different pricing schemes to see how badly students want certain classes. If there is a clear class or group of classes that students want, the university could open a new section or maybe even find more professors to teach it. This sort of program creates a quantifiable way to measure the demand for class. How quickly a class fills up currently shows demand for a class, but the Illinibucks program could show the ultimate strength of the demand for certain classes.


Comments

  1. Professor ArvanOctober 6, 2019 at 1:03 PM

    I liked your first paragraph where you said the university would get information about students use of Illinibucks. I see that expanded on it in the last paragraph. For this to actually work, what do you think needs to happen in the department that is offering the course? How would they benefit?

    I'm somewhat surprised about your reporting that you've bee closed out of classes, even as a senior. Are you talking about Economics classes or classes in other departments? I should add here that I think the idea of shopping for classes by attending a couple of sessions should be debundled from the actual semester. It makes it much harder to teach and in our class those who added late frequently don't seem to catch up. They have an initial flurry where they try but then drop back. So...

    I have no problem with adds and drops that occur before the semester has started. I'd be curious to know whether you've done any of that and if so, what caused you to do that. But it should end before the first day of the semester. While that is not likely to happen, I'd much prefer it if it did.

    Let's focus on an alternate possibility. Instead of the current system, students articulate their preferences for classes through their advisors, and those are then entered in a Great Computer Program that produces initial schedules for all students. Then the add-drop process proceeds as it is currently designed. Why do this? Well, you've mentioned over subscribed classes. Are there undersubscribed classes as well? Would some students take those if they were initially assigned to them? Alternatively, are there undesirable times for certain classes that are offered in a multi-section format? How should those less desirable times be allocated?


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