We are a middle class family and my oldest (now a senior at University of Maryland) went hungry at UMD for his first 2 years until they realized their students were going hungry and changed their food plan from “pay per item” to “pay per an all you can eat meal” the main reason he went hungry for the second half of every semester was because he is a really big guy. Not obese, probably not even overweight, but 6"4 and stocky. Even though we had bought a larger amount of points per semester for him, he just requires a lot of calories. He would eat normally for the first half of the semester then starve the last half. Since he knew my husband and I were really stretching the budget just to send him there , he wouldnt ask for money. (Part of this may be our fault since freshman year we already felt we were spending such a huge amount on the food plan that when he would run out of points we would scold him for not spending them properly, but when my husband and I went to college we had all-you -eat cafeterias where we ate until we werent hungry and didn’t over indulge) he got a part time job and we would always wonder why he didnt have money, but it was because he was surviving off the McDonalds $1 menu and ramen for the second half of every semester. Which caused him to gain weight and become obese, which required him to need more calories…it was a vicious cycle. He also was allowed 1 all you can eat meal a week at a certain dining hall in his plan and he and his friends would go around lunch time, study there and eat for hours because it was their only time in the week to actually have access to unlimited food. SO they over indulged and that was another bad cycle that started. UMD changed to each swipe of the meal card was one meal. Since they are now all you can eat per meal, they reduced portion sizes (to normal sizes) to reduce waste (but a kid like my son can still take 2 small slices of pizza for the same price) they stopped carry out (another bad thing for college kids - they would take their food back to their dorms and eat in front of their computers with no socialization at all) they also greatly extended dining hall hours - which was another problem because when he was a freshman, he would get hungry in the evening and there would be no option for him to eat since he didnt have a car. So he would gorge at his dinner meal as he became afraid of being hungry later in the evening (dwindling his dining points and again gaining weight) - when if he just had an apple or two available to him as he did at home he would have been fine in the evening. Since the meal plan change, he has lost 70 pounds in 2 years and is never hungry. This also took some counseling to get to the bottom of his drastic weight gain and awareness of what his daily calorie and carb intake should be. UMD figured this problem out and all colleges and universities should look to them to adjust their food plans.
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