The kiosks, which in many cases is located near campus bookstores, offer same-day delivery to members of Amazon's membership program targeting students, called Prime Student, Bloomberg reports.
Prime Student costs $50 annually, which is half the price of a regular Prime membership. But it comes with everything that a full-priced membership offers, including two-day delivery on millions of items like textbooks and college-themed clothing, as well as music and video streaming.
The lockers also offer something Amazon Prime's full-price membership doesn't: free same-day delivery.
That's because the central location of the lockers makes delivery easier and more efficient for Amazon.
The discounted membership fee and conveniently located lockers are meant to get students addicted to Prime service at a young age, just as they are beginning to feed and clothe themselves without the help of their parents.
In many ways, the lockers are replacing the campus bookstore.
"On a college campus, you have all of your future customers in one place," Ripley MacDonald, who runs Amazon's student programs, told Bloomberg. "We graduate students into full-price prime memberships."
Amazon is rapidly rolling out the pickup lockers at college campuses across the country.
The company currently has them on 16 campuses, including Purdue University, University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Pennsylvania, according to Bloomberg.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through hispersonal investment company Bezos Expeditions.