by Ogelthorpe Q. Sighvatson

Created on: April 30, 2009

Consider the stereotypical college student's list of priorities when it comes to food:

1. Cheap
2. Filling/Abundant
3. Delicious
4. Can be delivered to the dorm at 3 in the morning
5. nutritious
6. Cheap

We can only come to one conclusion: Pizza is the ultimate meal for college students. We'll go ahead an break down the list of priorities to see just how many things pizza (especially in a college town) gets right.

1 and 6. The big one for any college student, let alone one trying to survive in this economy, is price. If you and your roommate each have five bucks in your pocket, how can you pool your resources to buy dinner tonight that will also yield breakfast for tomorrow? Any college is going to be surrounded by a selection of different pizza joints vying for the students' dollars. This leads to a supply and demand driven pricing competition that generally benefits the students.

In the relatively college town of Kutztown, PA our two hypothetical students could choose between two delivery places and have the option of splitting a large two topping pizza or two medium plain pies depending on where they order from and still be able to tip the deliver guy a dollar in either case. If they felt like walking between 2 and 7 blocks, they would have 4 pizza places to choose from and go the even more economical by-the-slice method.

Since college populations allow pizza joints to sell large volumes, the deals are always stellar.

2. Granted, a single hungry college student can devour an entire pizza. I wouldn't recommend it, though and most do not. Pizza on a college campus is either a communal food, or one which could feed a single student over several meals. After all, it's default delivery amount is roughly 15" in diameter. That, my friends, is bountiful foodstuffs.

3. Let's face it: Pizza is delicious. 70% of Americans eat it on a regular basis. Besides, college towns tend to have very good pizza available for some of the same reasons that they have cheap pizza available: competition. It is a freshman rite of passage to investigate your town's pizza joints and establish your various loyalties. One shop may be the place to go for a hot fresh slice of plain cheese pizza, while another has the best topping available. Every pizza shop is looking to establish their niche and this leads to a variety of styles and flavors so that ultimately everyone on campus has a favorite pizza place where they consider the food to be Delicious.

The late night debates that may arise when your study

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