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Every Friday night at Colorado State University, a familiar ritual unfolds: Students scramble to use their remaining meal swipes before the system resets. Maybe it means an extra drink, a late-night market snack or topping off friends for the weekend. The reason is simple: The weekly meal plan clock ends at midnight, and unused swipes vanish.
Here’s how the system works at CSU: Housing and Dining Services offers weekly meal plan packages, such as “Any 19” or “Any 15” meals per week. The week begins Saturday morning and ends Friday night; any meals not used by then do not roll over into the next week. Students can also get $200 in RamCash per semester and 10 “flexible bonus meals” for guests or overflow use. But the key point stands: If you don’t use your allotted swipes in that defined week, they’re gone. You paid for them, you used some of them and the rest simply expire…