When u prepare meals for a family of 4, u cannot enjoy the economies of scale as preparing meals for a student body of 4000.
The FDA $12/day might make sense for a household of 1, but not for a household of 4. For four, $12/day works out to $17,520/yr. There’s no way the median income American family spends half its take-home pay on grocery bills .
You also cannot compare $24/day to the cost of restaurant meals. Restaurants are for-profit enterprises.
I think this estimation also counts the electricity/gas/water expenses, etc., and has a sliding scale to differentiate economies of scale from 1 person to 4 or 5 people, ie., the FDAestimate isn’t $48 a day for a family of 4 - I just checked: the “low cost” plan has $862 for a family with 2 adults and 2 children under the age of 12, or about $28 a day for the family, which sounds about right as long as you don’t live in a high-cost area, don’t eat out, and/or don’t shop daily at Trader Joe’s. :d
According to this estimate, a thrifty teenage boy would need about $189 a month to eat sufficiently. Let’s round that up to $200 to include other costs not absorbed by economies of scale - there aren’t any meal plans out there that cost $800 a semester.
I think the cost of meal plans is another “financial adjustment variable” for the college, in addition to tacked-on fees you discover at registration - for the college, meals could be a profit-making enterprise rather than a way to reflect actual costs, or a way to pass on costs without raising tuition (which is more visible). Of course, the companies that are subcontracted for the food (BonAppetit, Aramak, Sodexo… plus the “brands” that open in student unions) need to turn a profit but it seems not all students get their money’s worth.
I thought “Dining Dollars” were supposed to provide flexibility so that students could buy items when the cafeteria is closed?
On the opposite side of the PB&J/ramen spectrum, anyone up for a lobster bake?
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1725029-tops-in-college-food-a-ranking.html
No, that option really doesn’t. Students who drop out lose the opportunity to get freshman grants. Which is easier, scraping together change for an extra ramen every day or cobbling together aid to cover $20k+ college fees?
It’s a misconception, I think, that all students who end up in that situation are ill informed about the college process and come from under educated families. My family was poor when I was in college, but didn’t start out poor. My father had a well paying job until he had the misfortune to become disabled. It was several years before my SAHM could get a job, and several more before they dug themselves out of a financial hole. (By then they’d run through all their savings and lost our home as well.) My parents’ generation was college educated and my grandparents’ generation was as well, and it was that education that made it possible for my parents to rebuild. By the time my youngest sibling was in high school they were able to purchase a home so my siblings and I would always have a home to go to, and they encouraged all of us to go to school.
The problem is that you can only work with the information that you’ve been given. None of my older siblings had meal plans that weren’t sufficient, so it didn’t occur to me that such a situation was a possibility. The college I attended offered plans at fixed prices. I didn’t choose the most expensive, but I didn’t choose the cheapest either. I got a debit card with a dollar amount on it which had to last all semester. It was an a la carte system, which wasn’t so bad when the less expensive dining hall was open. But I had a job and a major that required a lot of open lab hours and by the time I got out, that dining hall was closed. The only option was using my budgeted dollar limit at a more expensive place, which meant less food for the money. We had no refrigerators so I couldn’t buy food and store it and there was no place off campus that I could get to, so I had to make due with what I had.
Theoretically, but if you’re using them at Starbucks/Subway/the campus convenience store, you can also be using cash or a credit or debit card, and I can see why someone who doesn’t have a budget for those places wouldn’t be thrilled about mandatory dining dollars. I think they’re guaranteed income for the school/vendors, and I suppose that parents who want to make sure their kids are spending the money they give them only on food would like that option. For my college, dining dollars were used at restaurants and grocery stores on or around campus (including Whole Foods). None of those places accepted only dining dollars and none of those places provided a discount for using dining dollars.
Also, I think our meal plan averaged $12 or $13 a meal, which I thought was ridiculous. I felt like I could eat out and get better food at local sandwich shops for less money than that. I saved significant money when I started cooking for myself.
u also don’t have to provide facilities, insurance or paid staff to cook and clean up.
If you are implying there is some sort of wrong-doing in the entire university food industry, maybe you had best learn something about how they function, first.
^ JustOneDad: there’s price gouging, though. 
There’s probably embezzlement and theft, too.
Imagine the number of embezzled celery stalks!
Nobody wants to accept responsibility for having helped create the dining behemoth. Not the kids who want endless meal stations, snacks and espresso at midnight, and elaborate pizza ovens (when we were all in college, pizza was made in a conventional oven and we all survived.) Not the parents, who sniff with disdain when eating in a traditional cafeteria line while visiting colleges, knowing that their friends and neighbors are sending their kids off to colleges with mesclun on the salad bar at every meal and a full assortment of gluten free/GMO free/organic produce. Certainly not the university-industrial complex, which views creation of hotel quality amenities as sometimes more important than the educational offerings (see the transition at High Point College as Exhibit A. A mediocre college which has transformed itself by offering gourmet ice cream.)
Yes, it costs money to offer belgian waffles 24/7. Do you really think that the cost basis of these fancy dining options remotely resembles what it costs you to feed little Susie and Johnny at home? Do you have paid kitchen staff working 5 am-midnight so that every yearning for sushi or gourmet coffee can be met immediately?
Didn’t think so. The labor intensity of food service is extraordinary. Colleges are paying for someone to chop, saute, serve, clean up, certify that the vegan food is vegan and that there is no cross-contamination from the quinoa to the orzo and vice versa. Not to mention the dieticians and nutritional counselors on staff to make sure that the anorexics and the athletes are all getting enough protein.
It is naive to compare the cost of feeding a kid at college to what it costs you at home. Presumably you aren’t paying a staff to get the meal on the table, weekly extermination, daily sanitation, etc.
Do you sleep at at Westin and then complain that it’s cheaper for you to change the sheets at home than to pay $200 a night for someone else to do it?
Apples and oranges.
I am highly sympathetic to the plight of low income kids who can’t get enough to eat on campus, but the onus begins with us- the people who drove university dining to the point it is today. When I went to college in the 1970’s dinner ended at 6:30 pm. If you had a late class or athletic practice, there was a section of the dining hall where you could pick up a premade plate until about 8 pm. What college could survive today with that system???
And if you wanted coffee at 11 pm you stuck an immersion heater in a mug, poured in some Nescafe, and called it a day.
If there aren’t enough pomegranates in your dining hall, you can get in trouble for going around to the other dining halls and liberating the ones they have there.
Ask me how I know this.
Two years ago there was a Nutella scandal at some college. Where I live the stuff costs about $6 a jar- and is considered a luxury item. Kids were scarfing down Nutella at such a clip the college couldn’t keep it in stock.
In stock? And we wonder why the meal plans cost so much?
Nutella was a childhood food stapple, but I didn’t even know it was possible to eat pomegranates until exchange kids tried to steal some.
Overall, though, colleges offer the food students enjoy. it’s the same with housing: kids have grown with their own bedroom AND bathroom, and expect similar comfort when they get to college. We can all regret the good old days and I agree some luxury items aren’t necessary, but the wide variety of meal plan prices doesn’t correlate with differing quality levels, just like costly dorms don’t always mean nice dorms.
The issue can thus be
1° only one expansive meal plan that is a good quality/good value overall - but too expansive for some students who’d choose another plan if it were offered => solution: financial aid? work study contracts? (since the reason there’s no other meal plan is to create the economies of scale that allow the contracted third party to turn a profit. Perhaps partly taken on by the college, partly by the third party, in exchange for operating a small after-hour dorm cafe that is likely to make brisk business with those who aren’t impecunious.)
2° several meal plans, all too costly unless one foregoes a meal => work study contracts?
3° low quality food => student involvement?
4° students expecting their money to go to regular high-end meal items (and not minding their parents paying for them?)
I don’t think there’s a 5°: decently priced, low-cost/low-budget food offerings.
Another issue is also students with religious/dietary/health limitations…
Yet another issue is where the food comes from.
Yet another issue is
An issue is that students don’t really have a choice, especially at colleges that require freshmen/students to live in the dorms. They don’t choose the quality of the food, if it’s frozen/all-fried all the time or cooked on the premise with vegetables from the farm work study students operate under the direction of college employees… regardless of the cost or the quality, they have to pay, and they don’t really have a way to gauge whether it’s a good value.
What if you paid Marriott prices for a run down motel 6, for example? Or would be fine with hostel-like conditions, but end up forced to pay W rates and can’t live at home to avoid that?
There are still choices. There are schools that offer a full meal plan and many variations. There are dining dollars. At my kid’s schools very few students who are not Freshman have meal plans at all. Mine don’t.
Most 17 and 18 year olds lack the skills and the time to feed themselves nutritious food on a daily basis. Yes, it’s cheaper to go to the supermarket and stock up on kale and black beans and buy a crock pot and throw in a healthy stew or ratatouille every morning before class. The number of college freshman who can do this (access to a supermarket and the desire to shlep the bags home, the time and the planning…) is a very tiny number.
Back when we were in college libraries closed at 11 pm and athletic facilities were only available to someone on a team or taking a PE class (non-athletes brought their own towels) and there was one phone on every hallway which we lined up to use on Sunday night to call home. And the food was relatively cheap (as a % of total costs of going away to college) and most of the time it was some sort of mystery meat served with something that used to be a vegetable before it sat in a steam tray. We had salad bar once a week- canned corn, iceberg lettuce, and a mass of jello with pineapple in it (is that a vegetable?)
This is not palatable to students these days. But if students demand more amenities- you can’t blame the colleges for trying to offer what their “market” is demanding.
^Okay JustOneDad, I’ll bite… How do you know pomegranates can be liberated?
Pomegranate liberation march?
18yr olds have the same 24 hrs as everyone else. 
As I have mentioned elsewhere, I think the time has come to rework high schools and their overemphasis on AP courses. Let’s bring back vocational courses that are useful, like metal shop & home ec.
It is not the purview of the public high school to supply college credit. It is their job to graduate students who can contribute to society in an informed & thoughtful manner.
For the Nutella lovers, I am sorry to deliver this sad news …
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/14/us-ferrero-founder-idUSKBN0LI0T320150214
OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
That ruined my day!
(not… don’t worry)
Courses I think should be mandatory in high school, even if in short modules combined together in a one-year course, I don’t know, 1 period a week over a year or in 9-week periods (ie., not to create one more hoop to jump through and hinder choices by adding tons of requirements, but because I really think no one should graduate HS without a basic understanding of these): cooking, health, personal finances, and physical education/activity/wellness.