@Corinthian - My S usually eats at Mudd (but I think that is more convenience of location than anything else). My D likes Mudd and Scripps and has expressed a definite preference for them over CMC or Pitzer. But obviously, location sometimes a specific menu item (or “night”) will influence their decision.
Yes I agree about convenience of location and specific menu items. My D lives on south campus so for her to go to Pitzer or even Mudd is a bit of a hike, and she usually does it with a group of friends on a specific night of the week for a specific item (i.e., Pitzer Pad Thai).
Since a dining hall is basically a restaurant, it seems like the base costs of running a dining hall would be similar to that of running a restaurant. Obviously, this will typically be more expensive than home cooking similar meals.
I think much of it is because of the monopoly the school has. At D#2’s school, freshmen have to buy a meal plan that costs almost $6000/yr There is one dining hall, open 7-7, and they can go in and out as many times as they like. Suddenly when they are sophomores, they only have to buy a $3400 dining plan, because we all know that sophomores eat less than freshman. Oh wait, you say, maybe it’s because so many sophomores were moving off campus because they could save so much money? Yes, that may be it.
But some students learn how to get the best deal. One option for students living off campus is to have just a M-F lunch option for about $900/sem. Lunch starts at 10:30 and goes until 3, so daughter’s boyfriend would sometimes eat 3 times in a day, with a ‘brunch’ at 10:30, then a snack at noon, and as long as he entered the dining hall by 3 he could eat until it closed.
They can want all they want, but most don’t get it.
By the way, people of generations past have wanted bigger rooms, too. And many complained about the food.
(I’m working on a bicentennial project where we’re digitizing university satisfaction surveys dating back to the 1920s. I promise we are not the first generation to whine about room & board. But we do tend to see the past through rose-colored glasses.)
^^The difference is that most parents want the use thing for their kids (decent sized rooms and good food) vs before, most parents were not really bothered by crappy food and housing. Out of sight, out of mind.
I attended a famous U. in Scotland where the food was horrendous (local doctor told me hemorrhoids were epidemic there due to lack of fruits & veggies), and toward the end of the terms, undergrads begged administration to leave dorm heat on overnight. And this place has no trouble getting students. Made even the most spartan American colleges seem plush.
@romanigypsyeyes I guess – but having toured colleges with several of my kids now I don’t really see many with the small rooms and down the hall bathroom set ups I had. I was well aware I wasn’t getting anything better and was okay with all that too. Soon enough I graduated and got someone a tad better. The higher level accommodations HAVE to be more costly,
@suzyQ7 You are probably right about that – personally I think a small room and crappy food is character building. It won’t kill anyone for a few years and as a matter of fact perhaps incent these students to strive to do better.
People of generations past at some elites brought “staff” with them!
The first college protest on record was at Harvard and it was…drumroll please…over food!
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/04/harvards-long-ago-student-risings/
Kids today? They only protest social injustice and crime and depend on themselves to get dressed and most even do their own laundry…
Interestingly, that is not necessarily the case. S15 is at an Ivy and his living accommodations the past two years have been horrendous, but the room cost is certainly no lower than schools with posh housing. There are a range of rooms and somehow he has managed to get the short straw 2 years in a row, yet everyone pays the same. His rooms have not been large enough to unbunk the beds to give an idea of the size, no closets, a hall bathroom, and no fancy common spaces. Upperclassman housing doesn’t get much better. Even though the school is swarming with students from 1% families no one seems to complain and almost everyone lives on campus all 4 years. The reality is that applicants would line up at this school even if they had to spend 4 years in sleeping bags on a gym floor; the majority of schools have to find ways to appeal to applicants however, and fancy housing is just one way they try to differentiate themselves.
They cited Wellesley as an extreme example but here in New England the average freshman food plan runs around $6,000 - $6,500. Very expensive indeed. They force the issue on you also under the guise of “socialization”. What a crock. they just want more money!
Time to break out the cold weather camping sleeping bags.
@planner03 so parts of the campus have better accommodations? My old campus never used to (of course they do now)
@MassDaD68 I have 3 kids that go to school more Midwest – and all looked at more eastern schools (we are from NE and then NJ). And as a whole the NE and Northeast schools meal plans and housing were noticeably more expensive
@planner03 it’s the same at my D’s LAC (Pomona). Everyone pays the same for room charges even though there is often a huge disparity in the living quarters, including square footage, how many are occupying that square footage, bathroom convenience, and most importantly air conditioning or the lack thereof. Space is reserved for freshman and freshman can luck into some nice spacious singles and doubles. But my sophomore D has a single that’s 104 sq feet with one window that overlooks an elevated walkway (so there’s foot traffic going by all the time) and there’s a freshman next to her in a 130 Sq foot single with 2 windows with a nice view. But that’s the way the system works and virtually everyone lives on campus all 4 years. She has spent several summers working as a debate coach at debate camps at UCLA and ASU and thought the dorms there seemed like palaces by comparison, but she would never transfer and is definitely willing to put up with her small dorm room.
I agree with @twoinanddone at #23. Dartmouth changed its meal plans around 2010/2011 (if memory serves) from an a la carte system to a full meal/all you can eat – so a small 5 foot woman paid as much per meal as a hulking male football player. The responsible administrator at the time actually took credit for a revenue-enhancing move for the college. That internet post disappeared quickly, but not before everyone had time to see exactly what was going on. I was disgusted – but that’s pretty much the only bad thing I have to say about Dartmouth.
Well, gee, I have the oddball healthy-eating-special-snowflake kid who I’ve been telling for years that when she goes to college, she will have to learn to eat “normal people food.” Apparently I misjudged.
When my father attended the #2 university in the ROC(Taiwan) during the early '50s on a complete full-ride, the cafeteria food was so horrendous and monotonous that when he put in his 2 years of military service as a conscripted junior officer after graduating, the food in the military mess halls and US supplied C-rations from WWII/Korean War eras was like being sent to something akin to culinary heaven.
Food costs are largely reflective of the costs of the surrounding area. College aged kids eat a lot too. At Michigan the food is quite reasonable. An unlimited food plan runs about $20/day. The food is reasonably good and the cafeterias are open most of the day, and you go to any of them. You could not eat out at restaurants for anywhere close to that amount. I’d expect the east and west coasts to be 50% more just like restaurants.