DecliningBalanceAccount

The "Declining Balance Account" (did I get the Acronym correct?) or DBA, is one of the the different accounts on the Dartmouth Card.

Unlike the rest of the accounts, DBA:

Is mandatory (i.e., you must purchase a dining plan every term you are taking classes)
Is non-refundable
Must be used in a single term or is forfeit

Isn't that just great?

From what I've heard, the DBA account is set up this way because DDS is being supported by Dartmouth -- it just can't stay afloat, and it needs all the money it can get.

Ideas

At the end of each term, different student organizations put a box for food donations up at the Topside Store. That way, students can go "burn" their DBA and buy food for the hungry. My idea was to automate this process, so that students could go to the Dartmouth Card office (or online -- better still), and elect for any DBA left in their account to be spent on food for the hungry. Especially if a group could get the money outright (and not have to pay DDS' exorbinant mark-up), this would mean that people wouldn't just be giving left-over DBA to DDS.
Get rid of DBA altogether. Many people have promoted this opinion over the years, most recently in a short article in TheD.

Additional Information

Also, you can't:

use DBA to buy alchol
use DBA to tip at Lone Pine
transfer DBA to other people (if you have too much, etc...)

I believe that all of these restrictions are in place because a person's DBA might be funded (at least in part) by Federal Financial Aid Funds.

UPDATE:

Oh -- and you can't use DBA to buy playing cards? or dice, either. (must not like gambling... :^)

RobinsonTryon - 16 Feb 2003