For typical college students with less than meager budgets, Student Savings Club at Augsburg offers an opportunity to save some cash and helps local businesses at the same time.

Based in Chicago, Student Savings Club works to connect colleges and businesses, so that students can save money. The program helps students save money at many restaurants and retailers by offering special discounts that are awarded when a student presents his or her college I.D.

“This program is great for Augsburg because it helps connect us to our local businesses by providing them with more traffic and by giving broke college students a discount on things they already buy,” Virginia Biorn, student senator and Student Savings Club manager, said.
Augsburg is one of the 18 schools in Minnesota that are connected to the Student Savings Club.

In the past, students have had to present a special printed card to redeem discounts.

Now that they must only show a student ID, program supporters hope that more students will take advantage of the money-saving opportunities.

“It’s hard for students and their families to handle all the expense of college these days,” Program Coordinator for the Student Savings Club, Jeff Merriman, said.

“This program makes things a little easier by helping students to save money at some of their favorite places.”

Student Savings Club has been at Augsburg since last year, but was not widely talked about.

When Biorn approached student government President Maria Mitchell about starting a discount program, Mitchell mentioned that Augsburg already had one.

Since then, Biorn has taken over managing the Student Savings Club and is working on notifying as many Augsburg students about the club as she can.

Some of the retailers who participate include Domino’s pizza, Lone Tree Bar & Grill, Pizza Luce, Subway, Grandma’s Saloon & Grill, Yoga Center of Minneapolis, Lucky Dragon, Nile Chiropractic Clinic, Electric Fetus, Theatre In The Round, Freewheel Bike, Royal Orchid, Papa John’s Pizza, Leeann Chin, Captive Tan, Allivet Animal Health, and Cartridge World.

Discounts vary at each location. For a complete listing of applicable places, go online to StudentSavingsClub.com, where a pocket guide and program disclaimers are available.