14. While preparing for the final semester of the year, you and your two friends are wondering whether to sign up for college meals or to cook for yourselves. The college meal system provides you with 2 meals a day, for 5 days a week for the entire semester of 10 weeks, and costs $500 for the semester. If you and your friends cook, then the cost per meal per person will be halved, but one person will have to cook for an hour to make a meal for three.

Final exams are around the corner.

a. What is the problem in this situation? Please state it in an explicit and precise manner.

b. Systematically apply the seven principles of engineering economy (pp. 33–36) to the problem you have defined in Part (a).

c. Assuming that your time as a student is worth $15 an hour, what is the better value for satisfying hunger, based on the criterion of minimizing cost of eating per week?

d. What other criteria might be used to select an appropriate meal system?