The travesty that is student discounts being exclusively for students

[Balgram]

I can see this happening either way. I get a special discount as a student in the bookstore, and it's just polite for me to only use the discount when I'm purchasing my own items. If someone else it paying then giving it to me, THEY are making the purchase, THEN offering the goods to me as a gift. As this happens after the purchase, they are the people buying and thus don't get my discount.

As an employee who hates making fuss, I would still give the discount if the student is standing right there. Perhaps their wallet was stolen, but they need groceries, or something like that.

As an employee I would give the discount if the student is present with card in hand, regardless of where the money comes from.

As a manager and policy maker, I can understand why the policy stands. I personally don't think it's odd for the customers to be a little confused about this, but I agree with the policy and I see nothing wrong at all in enforcing it.

[tollbaby]

I understand that sort of policy to be thus: If the card and the official cardholder are present, then the discount is fine, no matter who is paying. Seems a bit anal to make it that the student has to PAY as well. My mom once bought me my college textbooks as a birthday present, I still got my student discount, even though she paid, because it was pretty obvious that the books were for me.

[depechemodefan]

Yeah, it seems as long as the student is there it doesn't matter who pays for it, it's for the student.

But there are people who used other people's cards to buy stuff for themselves. Same like a student uses his/her id to buy 4 tickets for the whole family, who arn't students/seniors/kids. So if the student in the OP was buying a hand dryer for mom to have, then I guess it's not for the student therefore there shouldn't be a discount.

slightly OT, but one day mom and me goes to Marble Slab Creamery and sees she can get a senior discount (ie, the senior price was like $1.99, not a percentage off, like 10% off the total). So she orders an ice cream for her and one for me, and I'm in my 20's. She wanted the senior discount for both. So I thought that was kind of tacky.

[Becks]

That's how I've always seen it interpreted; the student doesn't need to be the one paying, just that they are present with their ID at the time of the transaction.

Same here.

[StarsAreFixed]

It makes sense to me that student discounts are only given if the student is paying, that's what is the norm in places/shops that offer it here, the whole point is that the student is most likely poor. Here you can use any uni/college/IT card, as long as it's in date. Also, nobody uses credit cards and debit cards that need signature, it's all chip and pin, so no, name-checking is not in force.

[otakuneko]

I don't really know which way to go on this. The only place with a student discount that I go to regularly is my local Atlanta Bread Company, and there, my newspaper discount card is worth more anyway.

Here's my :twocents: anyway. I'd kinda understand it if the student discount was applied to the whole bill. If it's only applied to individual items, that's another story.

[Snowbird]

I know this is loophole thinking, but who's to say that students who pay for their own items with the discount aren't using money given to them by their parents? If the mother in the OP had gone to the bank and gotten cash, handed it to her child before they went shopping and stood to the side during the purchase, would any questions have been raised?

I ask because if that's the case, ensuring that every purchase is paid for by the students income alone would be a pain in the behind.

[MystyGlyttyr]

I know this is loophole thinking, but who's to say that students who pay for their own items with the discount aren't using money given to them by their parents? If the mother in the OP had gone to the bank and gotten cash, handed it to her child before they went shopping and stood to the side during the purchase, would any questions have been raised?

This is what my family does with my dad's Wal-mart discount card. Even though the card is for him and my mom, sometimes I wind up paying, so all I do is just hand my wallet to my mother before we get in line, she hands over the money, then she hands wallet and change back to me afterwards.

I mean, seriously, it took us a whole 30 seconds to come up with that one, and no one ever accused us of being thinkers. We're not even sure we'd HAVE to do it that way, as no one's really checking the name or anything on the discount card...we just did it anyway as a "just in case".

Maybe we just think too much like scammers...

[Imogene]

Ah, I remember getting a very special birthday gift one year fairly recently, but I forget which year. I asked for a legal copy of Adobe Illustrator, because I loved working in it so while at school. The parents would never have bought it at full price. Never, ever, ever. And I gave them my ID badge so they could go and buy it for a student, but still keep it slightly a surprise. Except they had to bring an order sheet home for me to fill out some info... There was no way I'd be able to purchase such a software package, and the parents aren't really into buying huge stuff like that for my brother or I. Hell, they hardly paid for small things for us. We had to earn them ourselves.

[Gingernut]

It wouldn't occur to me to ask for student discount if I wasn't actually paying. I can't say it's because I worry about abusing the discount though, it's just because I'd expect most shop staff to refuse.

My major gripe about student discount is that my uni card doesn't have an expiry date on it, because I'm a postgrad student and the stated end date of my course is really more like an estimate
Unfortunately a lot of shops have a policy of not accepting it if you can't see when the card expires, which does make sense... except that it was once refused only two weeks after the start date, 'just in case' it had already expired. That's one short postgrad course!

[Mighty Girl]

Yeah sorry but my mom paid for my school stuff. If we were in that position, we would have probably left briefly, she'd taken money out and just handed it me.

[Shards]

I think part of the issue is location here.

Most of the people who have said this policy didn't make sense to them have been from the US, while most who said they DO understand it are from the UK or other European areas.

In Europe, to the best of my knowledge, college is primarily state-sponsored, and so there's little excuse for the parents to need such a discount.

However, in the USA, we pay ever cent of our college tuition via a business exchange with the university we intend to attend. Even with scholarships and federal aide, it still takes it's toll on even upper-class families to send their children to good schools, and so it is understandable that their finances after tuition would be limited and the discount applying to them as long as they were purchasing for their kids would be an understandable idea.

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

Yeah, my parents helped me through college, too. But none of us had much money. We all went though hardships to get me though college. I didn't go to some expensive school, either. Hell yeah, I worked. I don't think that all kids going through on mom and dad's dime are spoiled, rich kids. Maybe I was a spoiled, lower middle-class kid, but I was going to go to college whether I could pay for it myself or not. Loans and scholarships and job and whatever else it took, they were there for me.

It's not black and white.

[pacman]

Yeah. Another European here. I believe it has something to do with the fact that it has to be the same personal info on both the student ID and the credit/debit card or something. That's at least how I understand it. Of course, if you're on a self checkout or something and scan the barcode and then pay, I'm just wondering if it would be possible for the SCO machine to check the names.

I perfectly understand the policy. If the student needs Mom to pay the things, why not hand her the cash beforehand. Or do a wire transfer / check / whatever you do out there in the Big World.

[fma_fanatic]

My SO told me a story once about how some of the city buisnesses in the town where he grew up would sponsor a "gold card" good for discounts on purchases for students who made honor roll/Deans list (mainly intended for students in HS) One time this family (not his) went to Sears (one of the sponsors) which offered a 20% off purchases discount, and had their daughter buy the family's new Refrigerator, Washer and Dryer and use her "Gold Card" for the discount. After much hemming and hawing the card said 20% off and they had to give the family the discount.

Never the less the next set of cards under sears it made a point of saying "no major appliance purchases"