About 20 million students are projected to enroll in Americas colleges and universities in 2020 As such there will be many mouths to feed and many on-campus dining operators competing to do so While some students may cook for themselves or grab a bite to eat off campus many still rely on campus dining options for their meals snacks and drinks The higher education food service industry was worth 18 billion in 2018 and is expected to hit 187 billion next year First-year students at many colleges often live in on-campus dorms with limited or no access to kitchens and are required to sign up for a dining plan Some schools even require students to be on a dining plan until they graduate The stakes are high for dining operators all of which risk losing students to competing college eateries or the numerous restaurants off campus Attracting students can require accommodating those with allergies preferences for variety or locally sourced foods and even class schedules and late nights It also often means providing modern conveniences such as a mobile order-ahead app Education technology and services company Blackboard moved into the mobile order-ahead market with the launch of its white-label app in September according to John Diaz the companys vice president of retail solutions product management in a recent interview with PYMNTS Diaz added that the app is being beta-tested at Santa Clara University which plans to use it at 10 locations Other institutions will also adopt the technology including one that sees it as an ordering option for concessions at athletic events Something unique about our space is the concept of student meal plans Diaz said Student meal plan capabilities where they can use a breakfast lunch or dinner meal or maybe they have a plan with unlimited meals per week or 20 meals per week had to be built into the application as a method of currency Securing app-based payments requires several strategies including tokenization integrations and portals that make it easy to access transaction records These solutions Diaz said help students safeguard the personal details they enter to use the order-ahead service Handling Payments And Safeguarding Devices Students can use Blackboards app to place orders at participating campus locations filter options based on dietary requirements view nutrition information and more Additionally those who pair the app with Blackboards Incentives offering can earn rewards for food purchases as well as for engaging in on-campus activities After placing their orders students have a range of in-app payment options They can pay via their institutions closed-loop payment system such as a stored-value account or meal plan or an open-loop payment system with such methods as a credit card Users can even split orders across payment methods for instance exchanging a meal plan block for its dollar value and paying additional costs with a card or stored-value account The app also makes closed-loop payments more secure by having students sign in to pay Diaz noted that this is an improvement over previous systems that required students to swipe their ID cards or enter their ID numbers into the app They dont have to worry about typing in a card number or having somebody type in someone elses card number which increases the potential for fraudulent transactions he said According to Diaz students are less likely to loan out usernames and passwords both of which dont present a physical theft risk Students will loan out their ID cards but they will not loan out their phones he said While students can stay signed in to the app meaning another party could use it without knowing their login information Diaz said students are more likely to notice that their smartphone is missing rather than an ID card Students already use their smartphones for many important activities and new services have made them an increasingly important part of their college lives he noted adding that some new solutions allow students to use their phones to access their rooms or pay for laundry On-campus students often pay through meal plans he said while commuting students and guests are more likely to use credit cards Open-loop payments are securely processed through third-party gateways with the payment details tokenized before being stored for future transactions he explained Single Sign-On Students are likely to be extra careful with their phone and login details Diaz noted because the mobile ordering service can be linked to other important campus solutions If a university enables this students can sign into the app with the same information they use to view their grades and financial information meaning theyre less likely to share those details with friends or classmates The setup also allows Blackboard to refer to the universitys system authenticate app users We do rely very heavily on the single sign-on capabilities from the college-university systems he said Were able to use the students same usernames and passwords that they use to access other college resources to authenticate their identities in the mobile application Then in the background were pulling the credentials to process those transactions Blackboard provides other transaction technologies to universities as well including support for in-person point-of-sale POS options for bookstores vending machines dining halls and more With the app integrated into that system students can go into Blackboards online portal to view all campus purchases in one spot If they notice anything amiss they can report it to school administrators to request refunds or deactivate their accounts LATEST INSIGHTS Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation thats reshaping the payments and commerce ecosystem Check out the latest PYMNTS study The AI Gap Perception Versus Reality In Payments And Banking Services