Before the beginning of each school year, students are faced with a number of decisions from course selection to housing decisions. Among these choices is also the decision of whether or not to purchase a meal plan.
For freshmen living in residence halls, there is no choice. University policy states that they must purchase a meal plan. For other students – like the upperclassmen and the students who do not live on campus – however, there is the undying question revolving around the decision to purchase a meal plan or not to, and whether one option is better than the other.
As some students will say, on-campus dining presents a number of advantages. For example, there’s the convenience factor of not having to actually cook. Then there’s the idea of not having to commit to grocery shopping.
But what about those who don’t dine on campus? Is it more difficult for them to get by? Commuter students – like campus residents – seem to believe that each option comes with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
When attempting to weigh the benefits, there are four factors to take into account when making this decision: cost, health, taste and convenience.
Last semester, I had the Freedom Plan. However, I lived off-campus. Therefore, I didn’t use my meal plan very often. I would use it two or three times a week, sometimes more, meanwhile still paying for groceries for my apartment. The cost of my meal plan was not worth the amount of food I was getting from it. Plus there was the hassle of getting to the Atrium before 10:30 a.m., so I could eat breakfast without using my lunch credit. Admittedly, I could also eat at the dining halls, Fountain and Clark, but, in my opinion, the food was not something I could handle eating for an extended period of time. Pizza and burgers are good and all, but there is only so much grease a body can take.
For me, the choice of dropping my plan was not hard. I figured I would save $1215 and cook for myself. For the most part, I’m happy with my decision, though I do miss the ease and convenience of the dining hall. I still go to Chick-Fil-A and Taco Bell, just not as often.
However, mine is not the only opinion. Some students prefer the dining halls, Port City’s, and the various eateries that campus offers. One example is my roommate who said she eats less now that she doesn’t have a meal plan. To put it in her words: “I don’t eat as much now, and I eat worse food,” she said.
Opposite of her are people like Tiadra Simpson, sophomore in environmental design in architecture, who said she does not miss eating in the campus dining halls as a part of her dietary preferences.
“It was okay when I lived on-campus,” she said, “but they never really had a good vegetarian selection.”
From the cost aspect, there is no clear winner, I suppose. On average I spend about $50 a week on groceries. Some people spend more; some spend less. This averages out to roughly $1,000 a semester, not much difference from the cost of a meal plan. The quality of the food is roughly the same as well. I eat a good meal on occasion, ramen noodles on others, but the variety is part of the pleasure of doing my own shopping.
In the end – as horrible as it may seem – there is no clear winner. Whether a student should get a meal plan or not really depends on each individual student.
In my experience, there is no significant difference in the cost between the two vastly different options. The choice must be made based on preferences in taste and convenience. For some students, the grocery store is just around the corner, thus making it a more preferable option. For others, the dining hall is a short walk away. The decision may ultimately depend on whether a student spends most of his/her time on campus or off.