Mobile Payments Take Over

 By Gisele Hernandez       Published on March 21st 2023

Vending machines at lunch, that only accept cash, have stopped students from purchasing snacks at all because the school has yet to realize that students nowadays do not carry cash on them. 

Out of the five vending machines in the cafeteria, only two accept mobile payments, these two vending machines only sell snacks, so buying a drink at lunch isn’t possible if you don’t carry cash. 

From a student's perspective, Freshmen Natalie Caballero says, “All I carry around is Apple pay money, and it’s very frustrating to me when I can’t buy a drink even though I have the money all because the drink machines don’t accept cash.”

In addition, it's not just that students don't want to use the cash vending machines, some are forced to because that is the only way they receive their money. 

“Technology is used for everything now,” says Freshmen Jackelin Nicolas, “In fact, my parents give me my allowance through apple payments so I don't really have cash as an option, all the vending machines just need to have a mobile payment option.”

Since there are only two machines that accept mobile payments, these two vending machines usually have the longest lines and run out of snacks the fastest, which makes it obvious that the mobile payment-accepting machines are the most popular and used by the students. 

“It’s really annoying when the mobile payment machines have really long lines and the cash ones don’t, because the line issue could easily be resolved if the school just made all the vending machines accepting of mobile payments.”

Photo Credit: Gisele Hernandez