As college
and university administrators know, students have a tendency to lose or damage
their campus ID cards. That can create quite a hassle, especially when cards
are used for multiple purposes, such as a dorm key, a meal card, a credit/debit
account, and financial aid disbursement.
However,
students are a lot less likely to misplace or mishandle their cellphones, their
lifeline to all things social. For that reason, Robert C. Huber, a consultant
for the campus card industry, predicted as many as 100 campuses will shift to a
smartphone-based ID credential by fall 2015, eliminating the need for a plastic
card.
Huber’s
Campus Card Industry Forecast 2015 says more students will be toting an Apple
iPhone 6 than any other smartphone brand, with students at private residential
campuses leading the trend. That raises the likelihood that the next big thing
will be wearable ID credentials, possibly via the new Apple Watch.
The
forecast also sees campus card systems and services moving to the cloud. For
those campuses that haven’t yet converted to key cards for residence halls,
Huber not only anticipates they’ll do so by 2020, but speculates that security
concerns will lead schools to install wireless access on all buildings to
better control who roams those halls.