Meals that Make Cents

Why mandatory meal plans are detrimental to freshmen

College is costly. Student loans are as synonymous with the
college experience as midnight cramming and keg stands. However, as UTD’s
freshman class begins its journey laden with student loans and college fees, it
seems unnecessary that UTD saddles those living on campus with the burden of
paying for meal plans. For UTD freshmen living in the residence halls, the
unfortunate reality is that the already high cost of living is exacerbated by
overpriced, non-flexible and entirely mandatory meal plans.

Given the options of 10, 14 and 19 meal swipes a week, the
cost of dining per semester is between $1,877 and $2,038. Averaged among meal
plans, that puts the average cost of a Dining Hall West meal swipe between
$9-12. For an entrance into a buffet with several stations, the cost of a swipe
is not relatively high. However, the problem isn’t charging students $9-12 for
entrance into a buffet; it is failing to realize that some students cannot
afford to regularly eat at a buffet. The burden of college costs can be
crippling, and a mandatory meal plan puts unnecessary extra weight on many
families. By opting out of a meal plan, on-campus freshman residents would be
free to save the money they would spend on meal swipes, instead spending far
less on groceries or cheaper restaurant meals. The opportunities for cheap,
affordable food are plentiful, but freshmen are chained to unwanted and
bank-busting daily buffet meals.

By making meal plans as paid per semester, UTD saves a lot
of hassle. Students’ families pay once every couple of months, and from there
the students are doled out their swipes on a weekly basis. However, by
structuring not only the payment, but also the distribution of meal swipes, UTD
has created an inflexible system that consistently wastes students’ money.

Every Monday, students receive their paid-for amount of meal
swipes. As the week progresses, some students dutifully use every swipe.  However, others don’t want to go to the
dining hall every day, and this leaves them with an excess of meal swipes every
Sunday night. Then at midnight, rather than allowing students’ swipes to carry
over, or simply be refunded back, UTD deletes those swipes — starting students
over with the prescribed amount of weekly swipes—and pockets the money. By
creating this mandatory system, UTD has set up every freshman living on campus
to lose hundreds of dollars per semester. 

As UTD consistently takes student money in what is clearly a
for-profit scam, it’s important to distinguish Dining Hall West from the meal
plans it’s tied to. As a freshman myself, I enjoy the food it provides and
appreciate having a source of food so close to where I live. Additionally, the
application of meal exchange does allow various ways to use meal swipes. In a
world with optionally bought, customizable meal plans, I would be an ardent
supporter of UTD’s efforts to provide an easy and efficient way for students,
especially freshmen, to find food on-campus. But the issue isn’t the quality,
type, or accessibility of food: it’s the mandatory way it’s shoved upon us.

Making on-campus living unaffordable is UTD’s business, but
enforcing an inexcusably expensive policy on students needing housing is
predatory and needs to change. Supporting customizable meal plan options would
allow students to minimize their spending and build a financially efficient
budget, tailored to every student’s situation. Eliminating the mandatory
inclusion of meal money into every meal plan would allow students to then avoid
changing their money into UTD-exclusive meal money, as well as saving hundreds,
if not thousands of dollars per semester. Finally, removing the weekly
distribution of meal swipes would eliminate the possibility of losing meal
swipes.

Students should not be spending money for a product they
have a specific period of time to claim. Implementing changes that support
student saving would not only show that UTD cares about their student body, it
would also encourage every incoming freshman to think through a financial plan
and begin learning about budgeting. Making these changes would be beneficial to
every UTD undergraduate. In the end, it will come down to the university’s
priorities.