When Pluckers stopped accepting Topper Tender as a payment method, it might have come as a shock to students. Pluckers is the quintessential restaurant for college students, started by them, made for them, with special events and discounts for them.

So when they discontinued Topper Tender due to a lack of business from students at St. Edward’s University, it revealed some flaws in the university’s Topper Tender program.

St. Edward’s provides Topper Tender through Bb One, a transaction-based outsource corporation. Bb One is one of many products affiliated with Blackboard, Inc., which also provides the online service for course information used in many St. Edward’s classes.

Bb One negotiates contracts with merchants and restaurants interested in partnering with St. Edward’s as part of the off-campus spending program and provides the necessary equipment for Topper Tender transactions. Bb One receives a discount fee from merchants that ranges from five to 10 percent for each purchase made with Topper Tender. St. Edward’s then receives 10 percent of that discount fee.

The university is currently partnered with at least 10 local businesses around the South Austin area. An exact number cannot be given, because the university’s web page is out of date and inaccurate. It still lists Denny’s, Pluckers and Ruta Maya, the coffee house next door to campus, as participants in the cashless debit program, even though they no longer do.

Employees at both Denny’s and Ruta Maya confirmed that the establishments stopped accepting Topper Tender before this semester began, but the university continues to list them as part of the off-campus services.

The university has also neglected to mention any newer additions to the Topper Tender program, like the ATX Food Mart, a convenience store on South Congress Avenue. As a result of these oversights, students are unsure which establishments accept Topper Tender.

In its current form, Topper Tender is a service provided at a cost of around $10,000 to St. Edward’s, according to Mike Stone, director of auxiliary services. Since the university only receives around one-half to one percent of the Topper Tender that students spend, St. Edward’s can’t possibly be breaking even. The question then becomes, “is this a service that students, staff and faculty should be willing to pay for?”

Due to the lack of available information about the program and the paltry number of merchants willing to participate, the answer is no. The university’s enrollment figures, paired with the fact that meal plan funds can no longer be transferred to Topper Tender, simply prevent the service from remaining viable.

Bevo Bucks at the University of Texas at Austin is an example of a pre-paid debit service that works because of the university’s high enrollment figures. It has 51,195 enrolled students, allowing the university to essentially guarantee Bevo Bucks merchants a return on their investment. For this reason, 47 on-campus and 70 off-campus merchants participate.

Topper Tender was once popular enough to support off-campus merchants despite the comparatively lower enrollment at St. Edward’s. But now that meal plan funds cannot be transferred, students have much less of a reason to use Topper Tender.