EDITORIAL: What Is a Bruin Buck?
Currently, I have $558.21 in dining dollars, but $0 in Bruin Bucks — in fact, I have never had a single Bruin Buck in my time at Belmont.
This is strange to me, because when walking through and around Belmont, there are numerous restaurants advertising that they accept Bruin Bucks. What exactly is this form of payment, and why don’t I have any?
It may be assumed it functions similarly to dining dollars, where each student receives a set fund they can use throughout the semester, but this is not the case.
Unlike dining dollars, which come with a meal plan, Bruin Bucks must be bought separately and can be used at restaurants off campus, such as Bottle Cap, Funtime Sushi and even the Zaxbys on Charlotte Avenue.
Instead of any price difference between money used to purchase Bruin Bucks and the monetary amount of the Bruin Bucks, they are exactly the same.
One dollar of real money equates to one Bruin Buck.
So, if the amounts are the same, then what's the point of adding an extra step of purchasing another form of currency when regular dollars function perfectly fine?
In my time at Belmont, I have not come into contact with a single student who has ever used a Bruin Buck.
But they are used.
Sam Saleh, one of the founders of 615 Deli, says that "about 30% of customers" use Bruin Bucks as their form of payment.
It feels like a contradiction — if students are still confused as to how they work, why is such a Belmont-centric business running into it so frequently? The answer is surprisingly simple.
Bruin Bucks are not really for the students; they're for the parents.
It is a way that parents can still make sure their kid is eating without being too overbearing during their time living independently, said Aaron Jerome, the Director of Business Operations for Auxiliary Services.
While students do have the ability to purchase Bruin Bucks, there really isn't an incentive for them as there is for their parents.
Because of how little this program is geared towards students themselves, this is not really something auxiliary services spend a lot of time focusing on, Jerome said. There is a much stronger effort of time and energy devoted to meal plans.
With all this, it makes sense that Bruin Bucks seem like a mystery. As prevalent as they seem, there really is no use for them for the student population.
The idea for the service is far from useless, but at this point in time there seems to be so little reason for it to exist without more effort being put into it.
Perhaps with time, the service can find a true reason for its existence, but for now its purpose belongs to the parents.
Written by Trey Sullivan
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