photo courtesy of Patrick Eiland
When I returned to Auburn University at Montgomery in the fall of 2024 the school had changed a lot since I graduated in 2015. The way you pay now for everything on campus is the one thing that drives me crazy.
I’m someone who never liked dealing with credit cards. The hassle you must go through to set one up, how there was a middleman, and the stolen credit card scare. I was never a fan.
Handing someone a few bills was simple, and I knew they got my money. So when I came back and realized they only took credit cards, it put me in a bind. I had no way to buy anything.
This issue really came to a head when I tried to buy my parking decal, which was a simple $30. I had that in bills in my wallet, but they wouldn’t take it since they only take credit cards.
I felt like I was losing my mind. You’re still getting paid, why does it matter how I pay you?
The sad part is this cash being removed as an option is becoming a trend around the country. In a 2024 USA Today article by Betty Lin-Fisher, cashless pay was something that was slowly on the rise. But the COVID-19 pandemic sped up the process, according to Bankrate Senior Industry Analyst Ted Rossman as reported by Lin-Fisher. “More businesses became cashless during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the need to protect their workers’ health by not requiring them to exchange paper money and coins with the public.”
It also seems I’m in the minority here. A September 2025 article posted by Leah Locke on the American Consumer Institute reported that the credit card is chosen eight times out of 10 for most Americans.
Aside from my personal preference, Cash does have its benefits.
The one that draws me to be a cash only payer was highlighted in Lin-Fisher’s article when asking Ruth Susswein, director of consumer protection for Consumer Action, stating “Cash is needed for choice, for privacy, for equity and for access.” But more importantly for my point, Susswein said we should be “allowed to decide how we want to pay.”
Phasing out cash is also bad for lower income households. Lin-Fisher’s article highlights that households with income under $50,000 pay with cash 28% of the time versus 13% from households over.
Those with lower credit scores might not be able to have credit cards which blockade them in many ways, said Susswein. “Those folks have limited or no way to do business with retailers that don’t accept cash.”
That being said, I can see why stores and people are switching over credit cards so gleefully.
Rossman said, “Speed and convenience tend to be the main explanations, especially with most stadiums that have gone cashless.”
He also says that time is a key factor. Having to balance the cash register at closing every day, counting coins, moving money from the stores to banks and vice versa. Credit card transactions take all of that away.
Then there was the fear of robbery. It’s difficult to rob money that was paid via credit card. Though for some AUM students there’s a different reason for liking the option to pay with cash.
Freshman pre-engineering major Benjamin Poole and freshman computer science major Marcus Lewis are both commuter students and they get less money on their AUM accounts per semester.
“We only get $200 a semester, so we have to stretch that out,” Lewis said.
It’s also seemingly a hassle to address it with Poole saying, “We have to go through a tedious task of adding more money to our AUM account.”
The main point is yes; I understand why credit cards are taking over. They’re fast and take away a lot of the burden of retail but at the same time taking away options is only a bad thing.
More than enough people still pay with cash to warrant keeping it as an acceptable option. This March 2024 blog post on Clearly Payments says that 49% of people still pay with cash on purchases of $10 or under, which is what most snacks and drinks cost in the AUM Bookstore.
The older generation still uses it quite a bit. Clearly Payments reports each generation’s preferred way of paying:
- Baby Boomers use cash 40% of the time.
- Gen X uses debit cards 32% of the time.
- Gen Z and millennials use contactless payment 54% of the time.
I see no reason to say no to cash. Both credit cards and cash have their usefulness and their share of convenience. So, can I please use $30 in cash for my next parking decal? It would make things much easier for me if I could.
