The Illinois Student Senate, or ISS, voted in favor of a resolution creating an iClicker rental program.

The program, called iRent, will purchase 200 iClickers for students to rent free of charge for a semester.

“The cost we mentioned is about $8,000, but we haven’t gotten a discount yet,” said Sam Barghi, sponsor of the resolution and ISS vice president-external. “If we get a discount, we’ll either buy more iClickers or reduce the numbers (we budgeted).”

Sponsor of the resolution Jim Maskeri, student senator and junior in LAS, said the iRent program will save students money.

“Every single student on this campus needs to take general education courses that may use iClickers,” he said. “If you’re only using it for one semester for one class, it doesn’t make sense to purchase one.”

Some senators were wary of passing this resolution because it would only affect 200 students.

“This money is student money. This program is not going to affect everyone,” said Ramy Cohen, junior and Engineering senator.

Maskeri said they may create a lottery system or hand out the iClickers on a first come, first served basis. If students do not return their iClickers, they will be billed to their account.

The student senate also passed a resolution about University housing meal plans. Meal plans come with a weekly café credit amount and a specific number of classic meals. Currently, students must use their café credits to purchase meals for guests instead of using their classic meals. The senate’s resolution supported allowing students to use classic meals to buy guests meals rather than café credits.

Although ISS passed this resolution, it is up to University housing to implement this change.

“I have talked to a co-administrator of culinary services,” said Shao Guo, sponsor of the resolution and sophomore in DGS. “When I asked if (this proposal) was possible, the co-administrator did not directly say no. This option could be considered.”