Duke University may alter its Merchants on Points program, which allows students to use meal plan points to get late night food from off-campus vendors, reports the Duke Chronicle. The reason is that few vendors operate during the midnight-2 am time window for which Merchants on Points is designed. Most outside vendors would like to see the hours extended into the early evening, but that would conflict with the serving hours of on-campus dining options.
Also, concerns have been raised that offering the late-night eating, which generally involves less healthy options like pizza, has a detrimental effect on healthful dining habits and discourages communal dining, encouraging which is a major goal of the campus dining department. On the other hand, students say they like the convenience the late-night alternative provides, since most of the vendors deliver to the campus.
