Students withdraw from classes for many different reasons, if it’s sometime after the first week and before the withdrawal deadline, it is usually because of something unfroseen (an accident, illness or problem in the family), or perhaps the student is overburdened with the course load and balancing that with life outside Kwantlen. Whatever the reason, they may drop a course to restore sanity to their life for that semester with the intent of taking additional courses or repeating it later on. They shouldn’t be penalized for dropping the course, even if it is their only course. A simle solution to the problem from this point of view then could be to make the U-Pass not a U-Pass and just for those enrolled in full time studies (9 or more credits).

But that solution doesn’t help Translink as their goal is to get as much money from every student as possible. Currently, as the article points out, not every student uses transit, so Translink is not receiveing money from every student. Under a U-Pass system, Translink gets money from many, many more people than they ever could have dreamed of getting before… so they should just swallow the loss until the technology improves and smart cards are introduced that ideally should have some sort of mechanism to “disable” the card if a student is no longer a student. So perhaps that is the negotiating position Kwantlen could take – a take it or leave it proposition for Translink.

Ultimately, Translink really needs to simplify how it deals with fares. The zone system is ridiculous. It should be something like “$2, 2 hours, wherever you want to go,” with a reasonably priced day and monthly pass for those who may prefer those options. Doing something like that would cut down on the red-tape, the need for programming machines, etc.