When I was at college (maybe not so long ago, though it was,) the school had three “student services facilities” which were the equivilant of cafeterias. The only problem was that the school really didn’t have a cafeteria, they licensed several of the fast food franchises to set up shop within these facilities. In one, we had Pizza Hut, McDonalds, China King, and Sabarro, as well as student run ventures (a submarine sandwich shop,) and in another there was a Del Taco, McDonalds, and other shops (I think you get the picture.)

Students could pay for their meals with cash, credit card, or the school’s debit cards, which removed money from a checking account the school provided from the students tuition (part of Room & Board.) Students could add money to this checking account to pay for more food. About a year before I graduated, the school introduced a line of “smart cards” which the issued card would hold the balance of the checking account in its CPU. So it was entirely possible that this school had a similar program (except that students could build up a tab and have that added to their tuition…instead of using a debit card.)

In this day and age, most colleges are figuring out that it is cheeper and easier to have a third party run things than to do it yourself, as most of the college run food facilities went out of business when the fast food restaurants moved in…the economy at its finest. I just wonder how healthy it was.