A select number of San Diego State University's chain of Aztec Markets campus c-stores will no longer accept cash payment beginning this semester.

As reported by SDSU's student publication, The Daily Aztec, three of the c-store concepts on the SDSU campus will be included in the move to cashless payments, and will accept only card payments including Visa, MasterCard, the SDSUcard and meal plans.

The Aztec Markets locations to go cashless are only those located in the student residential areas of campus, while the locations in areas accessible to the general public will continue to accept cash payments.

“We’re sensitive for the middle of campus, and to the societal reality that not everybody has a bank account, and not everybody has cash,” said Paul Melchior, Director of Dining Services at SDSU, in a statement to the Daily Aztec.

University officials have cited cost savings and increased security as the two primary reasons for the move to cashless.

“There’s a lot of payroll, there’s a lot of managing money, for a very little amount of transactions,” Melchior added. “The cashier may not have had any transactions in four shifts, but every shift they have to count in and count out.”

SDSU dining services conducted an internal audit of its c-store locations and found that less than 2% of the total transactions at the Aztec Markets in student residential areas were made in cash. In addition to reflecting larger trends around student spending, the university believes the low cash percentage is also the result of a large amount of residential students carrying meal plans.

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