By Ben Langston
Students at the University of Louisville have probably become very familiar with that little plastic lifeline, the ubiquitous Cardinal Card. Aside from providing students with a meal plan and another form of identification, the card also gives them access to many on-campus services, such as printing and laundry, in the form of their Cardinal Cash account. Cardinal Cash is a separate account from the meal plan and can be reloaded throughout the year.
Recently, the U of L purchasing department and local merchants reached an agreement to allow students to spend Cardinal Cash at off-campus locations. The agreement enables anyone with a Cardinal Card to use Cardinal Cash at any of these local eateries. The card can be used the same as a debit card.
David Martin, director of contract administration and procurement services at U of L, is very supportive of the idea of using Cardinal Cash off campus.
“The possibility to open up new opportunities has always been there,” said Martin. “Programs like Cardinal Cash are very popular at other schools – parents really like it.”
While dining options on campus have certainly become more varied in recent years, students who find themselves on campus most of the time may eventually yearn for a new place to grab lunch or dinner.
“I don’t really have a debit or credit card of my own,” said Rachel Stottmann, a freshman fine arts major. “Sometimes I get kind of tired of the campus restaurants and want something else. I like the idea of being able to use my card off campus.
The Cardinal Card website and stations for adding cash make it convenient for students to check the balance of their cards. And the new locations which accept the card won’t cause any sort of overdraft.
While some students and university officials are excited about the new partnership, not all local restaurants are satisfied with the agreement. According to Don Seebold, general manager of the Bearno’s Little Sicily pizzeria at the shopping center at Fourth Street and Cardinal Boulevard, the agreement is inconvenient.
“There are fees associated with it,” said Seebold. “You have to pay a maintenance fee for machines, you have to pay a percentage of each transaction – it’s not worth it for us or students, unless they can use their meal plans.”
Seebold feels the program was misrepresented to him, saying he believed students could use their meal plans, instead of just Cardinal Cash. He found out later that this wasn’t true. Other businesses involved in the agreement have said that students have come in with the misunderstanding that the restaurants are accepting meal plans, only to be disappointed when they find out the restaurants do not.
Another issue arises when students start asking what exactly they can buy at each of these locations with their Cardinal Cash. Martin explained that the agreement explicitly states none of the newly added establishments may accept Cardinal Cash for tobacco or alcohol. According to Seebold, he saw no such clause in the agreement, but typically refrains from selling alcohol to students with Cardinal Cash because he is worried about the parent response.
“Our third-party provider…has been informing the merchants as part of the initial sales call that Cardinal Cash is different than the meal plan,” said Martin. “[The provider] has confirmed with us that they have been informing every merchant. Obviously, there is a breakdown somewhere.”
Ultimately, when businesses accept Cardinal Cash, it increases the amount of options U of L students have, especially those who use the Cardinal Cash feature of the card on a regular basis. But some may still be dissatisfied with the inability to use their meal plan at off-campus locations.
To find a full list of off-campus locations that accept Cardinal Cash, learn more information about the Cardinal Cash program, or check the balance of a Cardinal Card, visit louisville.edu/cardinalcard.
