2008 Woodie Awards
Meal plan changes a good idea
Campus Dining
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The Student Government Association has found a way to help alleviate the cost of Dining Services' overhead without sticking it to underclassmen living in the dorms--who already deal with overpriced meal plans. And it has also found a way to entice prospective food service vendors to take interest in coming to Saint Louis University.
So why are some commuters up in arms?
It may sound unfair that Dining Services would mandate that commuter students and apartment residents buy a meal plan. A proposed plan that charges $200 for just $150 in flex points sounds like an outrageous scam that no one, especially not the majority of SGA members, would vote to pass.
But the proposed changes benefit the majority of students, and the fact that commuter students and apartment residents were not helping to bear the burden was driving meal plan prices for dorm residents through the roof.
Although all undergraduates will be required to buy a meal plan, this does not mean that they must eat in the cafeterias. The proposed system provides several alternatives to the traditional meal plan system, offering plans that are composed only of flex points and block plans, in which a student has a set number of meals that they can use at any time throughout the semester.
One of these plans costs $200, but students that purchase that plan will only receive $150 in flex points. This is because $50 of the cost of the plan will go toward paying for overhead.
As for offering incentive to new food service providers, the fact that every undergraduate student will have some amount of flex points which they will have to spend at one of the campus' non-cafeteria dining options sure to interest many businesses.
While some commuters and apartment residents may be upset by the proposed changes, the overall benefit for undergraduate students will be substantial. Once they have the meal plans, commuters will use them and, consequentially, spend more time on campus, enhancing the feeling of community felt between commuters and non-commuters.