Meal Plan advice: don't overspend

jazzymom
Wed, 11 Jul 2007 23:52:00 +0000

Just want to offer some advice to incoming freshman and returning students.

The most cost effective strategy is to purchase the Meal Plan option with the lowest points — then add to the points later if needed — rather than a higher-point plan. The reason is that the more points you purchase, the more you pay in overhead costs, while you can pay a $1 a point to add points later and not pay extra for overhead. My S finally figured this out as his second semester freshman year drew to a close and he had a lot of points left over from the “Meals Plus” plan, which ended up being forfeited or wasted. He couldn’t sell the surplus meal points to anyone else by second semester because everyone he knew had points left over. So, freshman and parents, DO NOT purchase more than the required “Square Meal Deal” and if you’re a returning student, think about purchasing the very minimum Grab-a-Bite Plan so you pay the lowest possible overhead cost and then purchase more meal points to supplement that on a no-overhead basis. That’s what we’re going to do this fall.