WASHINGTON — Area colleges are back in session, which means many students are gulping down coffee and cramming for tests. New data show one local school is among the top in the nation with the caffeine jitters.
Food delivery website, GrubHub, and foodie website, Spoon University compiled a list of the nation’s schools with the highest percentage of total orders that contain caffeinated beverages, and University of Maryland ranked near the top.
Of the Terps’ food orders, 4 percent of them contain coffee, espresso or energy drinks.
Nationwide, energy drinks are 83 percent more commonly ordered by college diners than those outside of college, while coffee is 15 percent less commonly ordered, according to GrubHub’s data.
University of Maryland students earned the No. 14 spot on the list, which was dominated by Philadelphia-area schools.
Below is the list of the top 14 caffeine-consuming colleges:
- University of Pennsylvania
- Drexel University
- Lehigh University
- The College of New Jersey
- University of the Sciences
- Temple University
- Hofstra University
- Middle Tennessee State University
- Rochester Institute of Technology
- Rider University
- Villanova University
- The University of the Arts
- Pratt Institute
- University of Maryland
The GrubHub data highlighted some differences in college students’ eating habits when compared with the rest of the population, especially when it comes to caffeine and the hours in which food is ordered.
Late-night orders between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. are 100 percent more common among college diners, Grub Hub found. That may explain the requirement for coffee.
“The habits displayed by college diners, and the takeout restaurants that cater to this population, help illustrate the inherent differences between college culture and the rest of the nation,” said GrubHub Inc. President Jonathan Zabusky, in a news release.
To gather its data, GrubHub analysts examined orders placed by students from hundreds of college campuses during the 2013-2014 school year.
h/t: Business Insider
Follow @WTOP and @WTOPliving on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.
