More on Meal Plans

Last updated on: June 27, 2017 at 8:59 am by Jane the Actuary

More on Meal Plans 2017-06-27T08:59:43-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Yeah, this is a Thing I Do: start to think about a topic, even a relatively inconsequential one, and dig into it, and produce relatively useless information. Thing is, pre-blogging, I would just end up doing so for an overly-long period of time, then think, “well, that was stupid,” and X out of one or two dozen tabs. Now at least I have the illusion that I’ve done something of value.

I wrote on Sunday that Marquette University’s meal plan was a mind-blowing all-you-can-eat, as many times as you care to eat. As much food as you can stuff into yourself, they provide to you via the (mandatory for dorm residents) meal plan. I further wrote that this was not just limited to private universities, but that even my alma mater, Michigan State, had the same deal: all meal plans for dorm residents included true-unlimited access to the cafeterias, 7 am – midnight, and the only difference between them were the number of add-ons (guest passes, “Spartan cash,” etc.).

So then I started asking myself two questions about other universities: how much choice do they allow students, and how much do the meals cost?

With respect to the second question, here are the per-meal prices at MSU, when purchased as a part of a package:

DineOn 175: $1,225 (at $7.00 per access)
DineOn 125: $1,000 (at $8.00 per access)
DineOn 100: $850 (at $8.50 per access)
DineOn 50: $450 (at $9.00 per access)
DineOn 25: $237.50 (at $9.50 per access)

I can’t find the cost for a single meal price.

How does this compare to a meal plan? Well, the cheapest meal plan is $2,857 per semester, which seems to work out to 16 weeks, based on the overall academic calendar, though I couldn’t find anything quickly on dates during the semester when the cafeteria is closed, or how much prior to the start of the semester the cafeterias open up. But that works out to about $25/day, or $4 more than the cost of using the most volume-discounted of the off-campus meal packages for three meals a day, which further means that any savings from “you miss meals when you’re away from campus” is negligible compared to the additional cost of “you’ll eat all your snacks in the cafeteria, too.” (Back in my day, the cafeteria closed at 7:00 but if you had a schedule that meant a late dinner, you could apply to, as an exception, receive a voucher for the after-hours self-pay grill.)

One tab closed.

Here’s another one: the University of Notre Dame. There is one cost per meal plan for on-campus students, but two choices, depending on how much flexibility to eat at non-dining hall locations you want to have.

The per-meal cost, when a part of a package for off-campus students, ranges from $15, for 25 meals plus $110 in “flex point” credits, to $10.50, for a 230-meal package.

At the University of Illinois, students can choose from 10, 12 or maximum meal plans, with the last of these offering cafeteria access of up to 7 times per day. The meal plans also offer a fixed number of “credits” which pay for meals at a discounted rate. The meals themselves, when purchased through meal plan or add-on credits, range in price by time of day, from $8.03 (credits within plan)/$9.21 (add-on) for breakfast, to $13.30/$15.26 for dinner (tax included).

At Loyola, we’re back to the “unlimited swipes” plan, with choices for 5 or 7 days per week. Their site also provides the “door rates” for the dining halls: $6.75 for breakfast, $8.50 lunch, $9.00 for dinner. Whether these are the same rates a guest pays is not clear to me.

Finally, at De Paul, the cafeteria has the most public-oriented, traditional cafeteria structure: students select a meal plan with a predetermined amount of money loaded onto their card, which is intended to last through the semester based on specified typical usage patterns, with the minimum required plan for on-campus freshmen covering approximately 1.5 – 2 meals per day. The cost for the meals? “The average full breakfast costs $6.75, while lunch and dinner may cost anywhere from $9.75 or above, depending upon the menu items ordered.” In other words, like a standard company cafeteria, you make your selections and pay at the register for only what you purchase. Presumably this set up means that the cafeteria serves not just on-campus students but off-campus students, guests, and other sorts of walk-ins. How the prices compare to other choices, I can’t tell — perhaps the menu would be posted at the link where it’s supposed to be, during the school year.

So why did colleges switch to “unlimited” meal plans, especially at places where there is no other choice? Is it imagined to be better for students because they can nudge a student into eating an apple as a late-night snack rather than a package of ramen noodles, or because it can get wrapped into their financial aid package and thus be “free”? Is it more convenient for universities to spread out capacity rather than having a dinner rush at 6 pm, because that’s when everyone wants to eat with their floor-mates? Is it done solely for marketing purposes?

And is the significant range in prices, even when not bought in volume, from $9 to $15, due to real differences in the cost of providing those meals, or differences in how universities allocate costs (e.g., the capital costs of the cafeteria, vs. the operating costs)?

That being said, I don’t think an “fully unlimited” meal plan is a good thing, even at universities where it’s intended solely for freshmen as everyone else leaves campus quickly. Yes, students need to learn to make good decisions about what and how much they eat, but it’s not right to create an unrealistic situation of overabundance and then expect students to resist partaking in it.

Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUniversity_Tower_dining_hall.jpg; By Howellboy (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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