I don't remember the one I went to having anything in particular along those lines. They had a fairly decent price/quantity/quality mixture (decent food in large-ish amounts for a pretty reasonable price), but it was still considerably (2-3x multiplier per meal) more expensive to eat there, compared to cooking.
Was a fair bit cheaper (Somewhere between 1.5 and 3 bucks per meal for a comparative amount) compared to other eat-out places, but not gratuitously so.
For MSH's plan, 900 bucks over a semester is... probably an easy (which is to say, underestimating) $2-400 overpriced compared to home cooking, even if you're stuck using a microwave (more than $100-120 or so per month is pushing it for a single individual, in my experience). At least if NC college town prices are in line with north florida college town prices. But that sixty buck bump on the low end is at least 3, 3 1/2 weeks worth of food in and of itself.
That one's for the gipper, I guess. Gotta' keep them darn college kids from voting somehow. Make sure they're too broke paying for food to afford the gas to reach the voting booths.
Students who are spending time budgeting, shopping, and cooking are students who have less time to study (or, in the vast majority of cases, to get wasted and make poor decisions).
You only really have to do the first one once, the second one once or twice a month, and the last one usually takes barely more (if not outright less, especially on the net if you cook for a few days at the time) time than transit to food. It's effort (and will) more than time investment, really.
Kitchen access is a bigger issue, but... you can do a lot with a microwave if you know how to roll it, and probably take the time
before you hit college (or during some down time, between semesters or whatever) to do some testing with local materials to see what works best. Sure, it probably took a few months before I found rice that did alright nuked (and figured out how to cook it that way and it turn out alright), but if I had actually got down to the brass tacks and did a solid sampling of local grocery offers it would have taken a day or two on the outside. Just as an example, heh.