Recession in my school!

So we have these cards at school, every student has one, every single one is unique, yada yada, bla bla. We use them to pay for food in the cafeteria, to use the printer and they get scanned when we are late. So basically, you have to have it on you at. all. times.
But that's not where I'm heading with this. I'm talking strictly money here, hence the title. Obviously, to get the money on the card you put it through a machine, I'm thinking everybody has an idea how that works so I'm not explaining.
We used to be able to put all sorts of money in the machine but shortly after it turned into only 1-2 euro coins and up. It's not a really big deal but still somewhat of a pain to a lot of our dear students, but hey, we manage.
Last week it was vacation, everybody had a great time and was fresh and ready for the first day of school... until we couldn't fit our cards in the money machine anymore and... it's a totally different machine! So during the holidays they decided, that coins are 'too expensive' to bring to the bank and we're only allowed to pay with 5 euros and up, or with a chipknip which is a useless little card that 5% of the population has. Ha! Thanks for the warning guys, I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of money on their old cards that they now have to spend within the week. And 5 euros, really? I don't want to waste 5 euros for a bag of chips that costs 0,50 cents.
"Why are they torturing us?" Is heard through the hallways and in the classrooms. This, small as it is, are the symptoms of the recession. The school simply does. not. have. the. money. Sad as it is, we're feeling it, it does pain our tiny little student hearts, it does.

Sincerely,
Your economist (of course taken with a pinch of salt, maybe )