There was an opinion poll about whether or not there would be any inconvenience in using school society welfare tickets. The Postech Times showed a variety of statistics relating to this opinion poll.
Since I have so far got 40,000 KRW of school society welfare tickets by participating in the events of the department and questionnaires and I also have the experiences of using these tickets on the campus shops, I can understand the results of opinion polls about the necessity for improving school social welfare tickets. Furthermore, I have a fundamental query about the reason why tickets instead of cash should be used on the campus.
It is a well-known fact in economics that the value of social welfare ticket is less than that of the same amount of cash. The reason why the welfare ticket is used in society in spite of the fact that the use of welfare ticket decreases its values is that it is helpful in solving social problems and thus increase social values more than the loss of economic value.
For example, social welfare tickets which are exclusively used in the traditional markets aim to boost the local or regional markets. Or social welfare tickets which are exclusively used in the purchase of foods aim to take care of the health for the poor people who spend his or her whole cashes in drinking alcohol.
Like these examples, if society welfare tickets should have a clear objective of increasing the social value of society, what is the aim of using school society welfare ticket in our campus? I cannot clearly understand the aim of using this ticket.
Somebody may say that it may aim to increase the sales of the university shops or the student union shops. It may be the case. However, I cannot still completely agree with the argument that school society welfare ticket can increase the social value of whole Postechians.
Another interesting fact of the opinion poll is that the 42% of all students participated in the poll prefer the tickets to cashes as the reward from the university, although 77.3% of them answered that cash is more valuable than the ticket. How can we interpret this results in the poll which looks to be contradicted to each other?
One interpretation may be that Postechians are irrational. Another interpretation may be that Postechians have mind of respecting the social value of school society welfare ticket which may be able to compensate the loss of economic value. I also would like to follow the latter interpretation. If Postechians have such minds, the profit of the university shops generated by the use of school society welfare tickets should be used for improving the social value of Postechians.