Remember back in the seventh grade when Mom and Dad offered you money to get those A’s?
It seems we’re back to that.
Ultrinsic.com is a new website in its beta stage that sets up a grades rewards system, catering to college students who wish to bet on their final grades for money at the end of the semester. While it’s not available to all colleges at the moment (sorry, Sun Devils), future clientele will join current users like Stanford, Harvard and Princeton.
After setting up an account, users input their courses. Based on those courses and the student’s college history, they are allowed to either create incentive or buy insurance. By creating incentive, students contribute money, essentially “betting” on a grade. On the flipside, students can buy insurance, which is like betting on a poor grade or failing a class.
The ultimate offer is solely for freshmen and offers serious cash for maintaining a 4.0 GPA throughout college. Based on the amount of money put in freshman year, a student at the end of four years could potentially earn back as much as $2000. Is that really the right pressure to put on someone who has just entered college?
HuffingtonPost.com directly compared Ultrinsic to gambling in Las Vegas. A fair comparison, considering users have to offer up their own money to make money. While any form of gambling requires chance, Ultrinsic insists its system is more about skill than chance.
On its website, Ultrinsic sends the message that its purpose is to improve grades. “Ultrinsic incentives are beneficial because they motivate students to succeed in school. Notwithstanding if the student won the incentive or not, if the student tried harder and improved their academic standings even slightly, the experience was well worth it.”
Students should consider the true value of the service. It offers something that really shouldn’t be hard to find: incentives for good grades in college. Students maintain their grades for various reasons, whether it’s to keep a scholarship, to stay in school, to graduate, or for pride. However, some students may just need an extra reward for doing well, and Ultrinsic can help fill the gap.
Yet, as adults preparing to enter the real world, why can’t students simply aspire to good grades without monetary compensation? If you really came to college to make money by betting on grades, you might want to look into easier institutions and less dangerous gambles. A prison card game, perhaps?
One Ultrinsic online ad basically asks students to bet on how smart they are. Unfortunately, college is a stepping stone to something much bigger than grades—the real world. In the real world, in careers, in jobs both big and small, not all achievements will be matched with money. In many jobs, the salary will stay the same, whether a project is done well or not. Students should learn to feel proud of their grades and accomplishments regardless of the incentive.
Instead of focusing on money, students should focus on the biggest incentive of all: landing a job in a career field they’ll enjoy being in. College, despite what it may seem, is not just for hardcore parties and picking up the honeys. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it can be a pretty sweet light to travel toward.
In a nation that isn’t in the best economic state, betting on grades seems like easy cash for a game that appears easy enough to control. However, it’s important to look beyond that to the larger picture and ask students to find motivation unaccompanied by a fat wallet.
Offer some cash to Abbey for her excellent grades at amurrell@asu.edu
