Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995                   TAG: 9508230104
SECTION: WELCOME STUDENTS                    PAGE: WS-51   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: SHANNON D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EAT NOW, PAY LATER: BURGERS ON CREDIT

But fast food joints are now getting the picture - when students have no cash, they would rather eat cheap.

"It's convenient that you get to eat the cheap stuff with a credit card," said Pat Brooks, a Virginia Tech graduate student. "I would rather spend $3.50 at Burger King [with a credit card] than dropping in at a bar and spending 50 bucks."

Burger King is one of several fast food restaurants in the college towns of Blacksburg and Radford to now accept credit cards.

The Burger King on the Virginia Tech campus began taking credit cards about two years ago, and since then, other stores have followed suit.

Priscilla Wright, assistant manager of the Tech campus Burger King, said accepting credit cards was a response to student's needs.

"A lot of people came in and said, 'Oh, I don't have any money, can I use a credit card?'" Wright said.

There's no minimum purchase for someone to use a credit card, she said, and some Tech students will even charge a 52-cent cup of coffee before their morning classes.

At the Burger King on Turner Street in Blacksburg, just outside the Tech campus, students can also buy Whoppers and fries at 18 percent interest - or whatever rate their credit cards may offer.

Shelia Linkous, restaurant manager, has been at the Turner Street store for only three months but says she can see an increase in credit card sales as more students return to school.

Average credit card sales for one day are are about $100 she said out of a total of $2,000 in sales.

"When I first got here, it was maybe $30 - $50 a day" in credit card sales, Linkous said.

Other fast food restaurants have opened their cash registers to credit cards as well.

Long John Silvers in Radford has accepted credit cards for about four years, said manager Karen Pearce.

"It's mostly in college towns and [restaurants] by the interstate," she said.

Pearce said roughly 40 percent of the college students that visit her store use credit cards.

"A lot of kids don't carry cash," she said.

Gene and Barbara Taylor, owners of the Dairy Queen of Blacksburg, got the idea from a friend who installed debit card slots on vending machines at Tech.

Barbara Taylor said the Dairy Queen corporation is monitoring the Blacksburg store and its success with the credit cards.

"It's been pretty successful," she said, and it is surprising to see how much people are willing to use credit cards opposed to cash.

Accepting credit cards is only one of the ways restaurants near colleges have catered to the student.

In Blacksburg, for example, many restaurants are now accepting the Hokie Passport, a debit card service offered to Tech students.

Businesses "are recognizing that students are much more comfortable with debit card arrangements," said Joe Sirgy, a consumer psychologist and professor of marketing at Virginia Tech.

But the reason students use credit cards is not so much for convenience, Sirgy said.

The psychology behind that is students feel a "sense of autonomy and individuality," he said. Students want to feel that they can be an adult.

"One way to demonstrate that is by getting a credit card and using it," Sirgy said.