The concept of Illinibucks would
be interesting as the administration of University of Illinois would have to
set a price for the rights of the people. Setting a price on other peoples
rights would be a difficult and unethical task that can cause problems among
students since it’s not a measurable value. An interesting use of Illinibucks
would be to make the seats in class available in Illinibucks,
meaning that the ones who have more Illinibucks would be able to sit in front
of the class just like in concerts or sports events. The students who have more
Illinibucks would be able to sit in front of the class and get better grades.
This makes the allocation and pricing critical since the Illinibucks were given
by the university administration and they affect the grades of each student
accordingly.
The
implementation of Illinibucks would cause a lot of trouble and injustice. Let’s
assume that the university is allocating Illinibucks depending on the GPA of
each student. A lot of research on the effectiveness of classroom seating on
students grades came into conclusion that the students who sit in front of the
class had better grades than the ones who sit in behind. If the university
allocates Illinibucks according to GPA’s of students, then students who sit in
the back of the class would have less chance to get Illinibucks in future. The
similar injustice can be seen in many other real life issues such as vicious
poverty cycles. The cycle of poverty in Illinibucks would go on until
a student who sits in the back of the class would study hard and get A’s on his/her
classes. In order to prevent this cycle, the allocation should depend something
other than the GPA of students.
If the
implementation of Illinibucks were real, I would look for ways to invest them
rather than spending them to cut in lines. Cutting in lines would be an unwise
way to spend the Illinibucks as one would only save a short period of time in
exchange. In the seating assignment scenario, each student has a chance to invest
in themself by buying a seat in front of the class. This way, the amount of
Illinibucks I was allocated would increase each year (as I would get good
grades on every class) and I would be able to spend some spare amount of the
Illinibucks in my daily life to cut in lines or register to classes earlier.
The
administered prices would raise an issue until the market finds the equilibrium
price. The low prices administrated by the university would attract the attention but decrease the value
of Illinibucks. Since everyone would
afford to skip lines or sit in front of the class, there would be a chaos and
nobody would have privilege. Another aspect of the inaccurate pricing would be
high administered prices which would even lead to forming of black markets. If the
Illinibucks were overvalued it would attract less students, and fewer privileges would
be available as students would not want spend their bucks all at once. However,
these problems would be solved as the market would find the equilibrium price in time. The Illinibucks implementation would be a system of mutual
interdependence where the values of goods and services would be set by the
students after some exchanges have been done.
In
conclusion, the concept of Illinibucks would be complicated to implement as
there are too many unknown factors that should be determined in order to
optimize the usage. Setting a price on services or basic rights can cause many
problems since it would be difficult to measure their values. A lot of
different fields could be found to spend Illinibucks besides sitting in front
of the classes or cutting in lines but I would look for ways to invest. The
pricing of Illinibucks could be complex but the optimum price would be found
after implementation was done.
