Students lack appetite for mandatory meal plans

Students who reside on campus all share one thing in common: dining at Table Rock Café. With the exception of students who live in university apartments, students who live on campus are required to purchase a meal plan through University Dining Services.

At housing.boisestate.edu, there is a list of prices and options available to campus residents. However options are few and prices are high. Currently, there are only four meal plan options available to students. Each cost $2,480 per semester, not including tax. In each of the meal plans offered, students must eat at TRC a certain number of times, depending on what plan they choose.

For a traditional meal plan, residents are allowed 19 meals per week, which equates to approximately $8.15 per meal. Besides the price, the most unfortunate circumstance of the traditional meal plan is that students have no other options or flexibility on where they can eat. They must eat breakfast, lunch and dinner for 16 consecutive weeks at the same cafeteria.

Aramark (who is responsible for University Dining Services’ pricing and meal plans) offers three other meal plan options to promote more flexibility to students. However, the prices for the more flexible options are highly unreasonable.

The most flexible meal plan offers $325 in flex dollars and 160 meals for the semester. Flex dollars can be used the same as a debit card at all campus dining locations. However, when doing the math, flex dollars equate to either $3.40 per flex dollar or $13.46 per meal. If a student decides to spend their flex dollars at Subway it would normally cost students $6, it would in reality cost them $20.40 through the meal plan. With prices like that, even Jared Fogle wouldn’t eat fresh.

“It’s ridiculous that as striving college students they charge us so much. Especially since you can go off campus to find a much better deal at a lower price,” junior Rebecca Watson said. Watson is a business marketing major and currently lives in Taylor Hall. She is enrolled in the fourth meal plan option, which offers the most flex dollars.

What bothers me most about the dining situation is the fact that student residents pay more than commuters.

Commuter Meal plans, which are available to all students and faculty, seem to be reasonably priced. In the new commuter meal plan brochure, commuting students and faculty can expect to spend about $5.90 per meal. While this is a fair cost of a meal plan for commuting students, campus residents are getting the raw end of the deal. It is unfair and unjust that students are mandated to purchase meal plans while paying outrageous and unappetizing prices. If the administrators on this campus feels that student health and nutrition is a major concern, prices should reflect that concern, and changes must be made. 

GABE MURPHY
Opinion Journalist

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