High school ATMs give teens the green
Tuesday, June 1, 2004 7:41 AM PDT
By Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articlePORTLAND -- Automatic teller machines are proliferating everywhere these days, and high schools are just the latest place for them to pop up.
West Linn High got an ATM four months ago, joining a growing number of high schools installing the cash machines. Oregon City High School put one in place three months ago. Gresham High installed one last school year.
And four of the six high schools in the Vancouver School District have ATMs -- an anomaly in the metro area and perhaps even the nation.
The ATM industry has little hard data on the prevalence of school cash machines. Illinois-based Teen Research Unlimited last fall surveyed 2,000 youths nationwide and found that one in 200, age 12 to 15, had a cash machine at school. The number grew to one in 50 among those age 16 and 17.
The survey also found that 17 percent of teens had a debit card, up from 12 percent in 2000, the first time Teen Research posed the question.
The proliferation of ATMs has increased as their prices have dropped. According to ATMmarketplace.com, an online news source that follows the industry, the first true ATM debuted in 1971. As big as boats, they cost about $30,000 each.
Today, cash machines can be slim, shoulder-high kiosks that cost less than $4,000. And the United States is home to 371,000 of them.
Portland-Vancouver area schools with cash machines say they've noticed an upswing in students who promptly pay school fees. Parents use them, too, before plays and sporting events.
Last month, 157 people withdrew money from Gresham High's machine. With a charge of $1 per transaction, Principal Paul Boly figures the school will own the machine outright in another two years and can raise money for the school after that.
None of the schools reported any problem with theft from the machines or students. Many schools bolt or chain the machines to the floor and train security cameras on them.
Daryl Grove, whose company GoodVantage Resources sold 1,750-student Gresham High its machine, has been pitching ATMs to other high schools, including in Beaverton, Tigard, Lake Oswego and Gladstone. He thinks data from middle-income Gresham will help him persuade schools the machines make sense in large or upper-income schools.
Not everyone at the high schools approves of ATMs.
In West Linn, the city with the highest median household income in Oregon, many students worry that their new access to instant cash will perpetuate stereotypes.
A student newspaper columnist complained the ATM has made West Linn High seem even more like "The O.C.," a TV melodrama about the lives of rich teenagers in Orange County, Calif.
"When they first put it in, we were like (gasp!) 'Is that an ATM?"' said the columnist, Brittney Oltman, 17. "It's right when you walk in the building."
An editorial writer at Oregon City High criticized her school's cash machine because she thinks it encourages unnecessary consumerism.
"I don't think it belongs in a school setting," said writer Molly Doyle, noting that the machine is next to where snacks and lattes are sold. "We're here for an education, not for buying things."
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