Discuss “Reforms needed for the student meal plan”
Those of us who are upperclassmen without meal plans once dreamed of the day when DineXtra could be used at Entropy. These first-years have it so good. Not only can they use their DineX at Entropy+, but they have a newer convenience store in which to do so. The meal plan system has kind of improved, but there are still things that don’t make sense about meal plans. In amount of food, cost, meal blocks, and what you can use your DineX on, there are definitely a few holes in the system.
First of all, on the absolute lowest meal plan as a freshman, for fourteen days, you get 22 meals and $78 DineX. With the average meal block costing about $7.25 or so, that equates to about $237.50. That’s a lot considering that I spent $120 at Trader Joe’s...
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Comments
Nov 07, 2007 at 03:16 AM
Shaleya Solomon,
Your article is quite frankly, absurd. I, along with many of my friends could eat, 2, 3, 4 meal blocks in one sitting. Freshman year, I had to go to Schatz for dinner every weekday and for brunch every weekend because I wasn't getting full otherwise.
"Even the lowest meal plan is too much food for your average student"? Do you really think so? Do you have statistics on this? Surveys? Nutritional data about the value of a meal block?
The lowest meal plan is 22 meals and $78 DineX for 2 weeks. You said that.
If the average student eats 3 meals a day, he/she would consume 42 meals in the 14 days. 3 * 14 = 42.
In other words, after the 22 blocks, the $78 DineX has to go to 20 meals, or $3.90 a meal. $78 / 20 = $3.90.
With the average meal block costing about $7.25, like you said, that $78 could stretch to 11 blocks. $78 / $7.25 = 10.7.
This leaves the average student on a meal plan without 9 meals for two weeks. 20 - 11 = 9.
I don't know about you but if "Even the lowest meal plan is too much food for your average student", then you are saying that the average student should go 9 out of 14 days eating 2 meals a day. Maybe if this was a third-world country, that would be OK, but the cost of education here is approaching $50,000 a year, and I expect more from this school then that. Did you seriously do any simple, basic, math behind this, or is this all based on assumption?
I spend about $500 a semester on groceries, and I'm able to eat about 5-6 full meals a day, over 3000 calories. If I can get more than twice the amount of food for less than half the price, that just makes more economic sense. That's over a 4:1 ratio.
Perhaps the meal plan isn't the problem.
Perhaps the school should quit ripping their students off.