The issue isn’t “decent” food, it’s “enough” food, but I agree that food security could be much better addressed. All colleges should be providing three meals a day, seven days a week to all students, subsidizing students with need.
However, as a few upthread, including myself, have stated, we were either in denial or too proud to seek alternatives (if there were any). Hypothetically, if someone had told me that breakfasts and Sunday dinner were provided for free at some other dorm/location on campus, I would have taken advantage of that. If someone had told me there was a soup kitchen in town, I probably would not have gone there. In my mind, the first solution would have been acceptable (just an extension of the university meal plan); the second would have caused me to think about myself in a way I would have found unacceptable at the time. So, I chose to go hungry at times, shrugging it off as unimportant, as “just the way it was.”
I think this is a good idea for students who live on-campus (although I would make one of the three a credit that can be used either in the dining hall or the inevitable on-campus convenience store, for the benefit of students whose class, work, and extracurricular schedules cause them to miss dining hall meals).
However, you can’t address the needs of students who live off-campus or commuters with this particular approach. There would need to be a different strategy for those groups.
We need to remember that living off-campus is not always a choice, so we can’t just say that students who may face food insecurity should live in the dorms. Many colleges do not have enough dorms so that they can guarantee housing for all of their students. Typically, they guarantee it only for freshmen or freshmen/sophomores, which means that many upperclassmen must live off-campus whether they like it or not.
And there are many colleges dominated by commuters, where those living in the dorms are a minority. You can’t tell these students that they must live in the dorms either because of limited dorm space and because living in a dorm often increases the student’s total expenses.
My experience was similar to @ChoatieMom in post #60. I would never have gone to a soup kitchen in town but free Sunday dinner, I’d be there every Sunday!
For me, the meal plan was a source of money that I could use for other things—specifically study-abroad or unpaid summer internships or not working during the school year so I could continue to do a varsity sport. By skimping on the meal plan, I had that $ that the university had given me as part of my financial aid in my pocket.
The thing that really helped me was the short-term work I could get during breaks and right after school ended. I always worked graduation because that was a week of work that could last me through the summer when I was doing unpaid internships. It wasn’t much $ but I was very thrifty. I also signed up for every paid psychology experiment I could during the school year and used the job board used mainly by faculty for short-term work (like garden work or moving). Access to short-term work was so important because I could fit it in during breaks.
Personally, during college I probably would not have taken advantage of something that required me to reveal my need. Of course, I revealed that in my financial aid documentation each year, but it’s not something I talked or revealed otherwise to anyone. I wasn’t ashamed or trying ‘fit in’. There is a lot of negativity and blame that poor get. No one wants to expose yourself to that. It’s irrational but you get 50 good positive comments but it’s the 1 negative one that sticks with you forever like a cancer that eats at you. Sometimes your family’s poverty is through no fault, but other times not so much. My mom’s poverty was due to mental illness and drug addiction. No way was I going to talk about that to anyone. I loved my mom and she loved me so much, but you mention some serious mental illness and people imagine you beloved parent as some kind of monster. If we were poor because my mom had cancer, say, that would have been “fine”. People with cancer can be loving parents; those with mental illness…not so much is the feeling I got.
That was my story, but I suspect many who come from poverty have similar reasons why they wouldn’t want to reveal their family circumstances.
Re the food pantry mentioned up thread. In my day, eating houses and frats would throw away so much food at the end of the year. For 2 years, it was by diving in their dumpsters that I got enough food to last through the whole summer. Though to this day, 30 yrs later, I cannot eat peanut butter without remembering the summer I ate peanut butter every day after scoring a 5 gallon tub of it from an eating house. Thankfully I also scored flour and ate it on pathetic “tortillas” thingies that I made. The food pantry seems like a great idea to me.
“My experience was similar to @ChoatieMom in post #60. I would never have gone to a soup kitchen in town but free Sunday dinner, I’d be there every Sunday!”
My kids (two very different campuses) have a combo of this. The Newman centers host Sunday meals. No attempt to convert or required religious participation. The location is on campus. Would you go to that?
Our local uni always seems to have food out in tables in the hallways. Sometimes it is from recruiters. Sometimes it is from department meetings, which put out their leftover food for the students. Other times food companies leave boxes in the hallways. It isn’t perfect, but it seems to work.
@TooOld4School, that sounds like the food in office kitchens.
If it’s nonperishable, it’s almost always junk food such as baked goods.
If it’s nutritious, it’s usually perishable, and you often have no idea of how long it has been sitting at room temperature. It may not be safe to eat.
I’m really uncomfortable with the idea of students having to rely on either category of food because they don’t have regular access to nutritious, safe meals.
@Marian , actually it is stuff like bagels, pizza, fresh fruit, coffee, etc. I agree with you about relying on that food, but it always disappears within 30 min of being put out, so I doubt if it has had time to go bad.
I think the full meal plan is factored into financial aid, but if the student chooses to live in a quad dorm or takes the lowest priced meal plan (or no meal plan at all) then the parent’s bill is lower. Parent’s need to realize that they can’t just pocket the savings. The student needs the full efc to survive comfortably.
So it seems colleges are to join K-12 as the ultimate provider of social services. Why is it their job?? And for a large school a Billion endowment only generates around $50 Million which has to fill lots of holes in the budget.Most is also restricted in uses. There usually are 1000s of food service jobs on and around colleges. With any effort jobs are there that include free food. I used to end up with more than I could eat.
Just a few seconds ago I listened to an Olympic skater say that he couldn’t believe where he was at that amazing moment. “Six years ago I was stealing apples at the gym because I couldn’t afford groceries.” Back to the point that drive and perseverance often involves sacrifice. People will put up with a lot with a goal in mind.
I think they can be treated differently. A minor living at home is different from a young adult living on their own for the first time. As others have noted, a certain amount of self-reliance is to be expected during the college years. I just think the issue of hunger on campus bears examination. I’ve certainly learned stuff from reading this thread that I didn’t know before - and, I thought I knew quite a bit.
I may perhaps be in the minority here but just because people do and have put up with a lot of sacrifice to obtain their goals, doesn’t mean they should have to. Well, let me clarify, there is always a level of sacrifice to obtain one’s goals (as only the individual can name) BUT I believe their is an egregious level of sacrifice that people should not have to go through. And in this particular case, if there are solutions/policies that make it easier for students to be able to properly eat, I’m not sure why we wouldn’t enact them.
If a student is living away from home for college they already have made a more expensive choice. Know your budget and plan accordingly. It will all just work out is not a plan. Although it often will as humans are pretty adaptable and clever. My brother found housing where they actually fed and paid him. Also got to live in a very nice home with his own room and bath.
Without my scholarship, I wouldn’t have attended college at all regardless of location or cost. My budget was zero. My full ride included the full meal plan — 13 meals/week (no breakfasts or Sunday dinners). At the time, the U didn’t offer any more than that, so there was no other planning to be done. I just assumed everyone was only eating 13 meals a week except for a few kids who were rich enough to get pizzas or fast food or have a refrigerator in their rooms where they could store food they had money to purchase. I wasn’t one of those kids. My scholarship was tied to my dorm (residential college); I had to live there all four years. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. I certainly didn’t feel sorry for myself. I thought my situation was normal and didn’t think about being hungry because that’s just the way it was. Sacrifice certainly never crossed my mind.
This thread brought back memories that I haven’t thought of since I graduated, and I offered my experience simply as an example of someone who was not starving but often went hungry (like the title says). I’m also with @crimsonmom2019 that accepting hunger in American colleges should not be looked at as some kind of acceptable sacrifice. Humans may be pretty adaptable and clever @barrons, but I hope you weren’t implying that if a food insecure student were more adaptable or clever, he wouldn’t be so hungry. A quote about cake is coming to mind.
Local university has food pantry and they do not ask any student about circumstances. But I guess that still might make it hard for some to go just feeling like they’re asking for a handout.
This is certainly true, but I think that many people in our society feel that the sacrifice should not involve food insecurity. I think this particularly applies to college students because the most obvious solution to their problem is one that many of us would not consider desirable – the food-insecure student could drop out of college and go to work, giving up the opportunity to earn a degree. I suspect that many students who can’t get enough to eat quietly and inconspicuously do just that.
So Choate–you had no spare time to earn a few bucks working off campus?? No summer money?? A case or ramen kept under the bed?? Come on. Not buying it.
I went from the required 19 meals/week my freshman year to 14 meals/week sophomore year (peanut butter in my dorm room for breakfast!) to 10 meals/week my junior and senior years. I fended for myself on weekends with the help of my roommate’s mini fridge and my contraband hot plate.
I bicycled to local grocery stores for supplies. It saved money and I was not hungry.
But I couldn’t even look at peanut butter for several years after graduation.
