NSU’s administration heard our pleas for healthier food options on campus at President Hanbury’s Town Hall meetings and finally decided to do something about it. NSU will make our dietary wants, needs and desires a reality by offering more variety at on-campus dining locations. But, as we all know, all great things come at a price, and even common sense solutions like new food options on campus are not an exception.
NSU administration constantly touts how much it legitimately cares about providing a healthy environment and catering to students’ dietary needs. However, when it comes to finding the budget that includes the additional costs necessary to improve food option variety on campus, the money will come directly out of student pockets.
Administration is raising the cost of mandatory meal plans for residential students living in The Commons and Leo Goodwin from $1,300 to $1,450 and is introducing a $200 mandatory meal plan for residential students living in Founders, Farquhar, Vettel and Cultural Living Center. In other words, the small minority of residential undergraduate students will be forced to pick up the check so the rest of the NSU community — commuter students, graduate students, faculty, staff and guests — can enjoy new food options.
The proposed changes are slight: the All U Care to Eat Plate at the Food Bar, sandwiches at Starbucks and the inclusion of the Flight Deck Pub as options. It’s great that on-campus dining is finally moving in the right direction. Yet, to residential students, too many of us struggling to pay off our educations, these new options are not worth it, and it feels more like a punishment than a treat. I’m pretty sure that if we put this to a vote, students would not choose an egg and cheese Starbucks sandwich over lower student fees.
The new meal plan reform actively goes against President Hanbury’s goal to increase the amount of students living on campus because it makes on-campus housing, which is already crazily expensive, much less affordable. Many students, myself included, intentionally wait until they qualify for the apartment style residence halls to move on campus just so they can avoid the meal plan fees. Before moving on campus this semester, I lived 45 minutes away, spent every day from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on campus and craved independence from my parents. I desperately wanted to move on campus, but could not afford to do so if it meant that I had to pay even more than the already steep cost of housing for a meal plan. Fortunately, this semester, there was a spot available for me in the apartment-style residence halls, and I was able to avoid a mandatory meal plan.
However, starting next semester, even undergraduate students in apartment-style residence halls, students with a full kitchen in their rooms who have the freedom to cut calories and conserve money by making all of their meals, will be forced to spend money on unhealthy campus food just so NSU can add a handful of new options. Most students seek apartment-style housing specifically to avoid meal plan fees, but now NSU administration is removing the incentive.
I understand that the required meal plan is only $200, and most students will likely spend that much anyway, but the amount of money a student, particularly a student with the ability to make his or her own food, spends at the Don Taft University Center should ultimately be up the student. Even if the student chose to buy all of his or her groceries on campus, groceries are much cheaper and fresher at Walmart and Publix than they are at Outtakes. No one with a car, a full kitchen and common sense would ever voluntarily purchase the overpriced, poor-quality food on campus for any reason other than convenience. Even with the new food changes, a definite improvement, the original issue with on-campus dining still persists: the food is still poor quality, unhealthy and overpriced.
What’s worse is that NSU is still letting graduate students who live in Rolling Hills have full autonomy over the food they consume while undergrads are forced to purchase on-campus food and fund reform. This is an illogical form of discrimination against undergraduates. Why are graduate students who live on campus at Rolling Hills free from meal plan charges when they are just as likely to enjoy new on-campus dining options as students living in undergraduate apartment-style housing? The only difference between Rolling Hills residents and Farquhar, Founders, Vettel and CLC residents is the degree level each group is enrolled in.
The new meal plan reform punishes undergrads living on campus for wanting healthier options that include all dietary needs. Instead of finding a fair form of funding for small changes made for everyone’s benefit, the university forces the financial load on one of NSU’s smallest and most financially-strained demographics. So, as you sit and enjoy your warm, delicious oatmeal from Starbucks this morning, don’t forget to thank residential undergraduate students who will pay to make your hearty breakfast possible.
