Meal plans are not a good deal right now. Many upperclassmen are not buying meal plans because it is much cheaper to just buy their own food or cook. This makes the University rely on first-years to make money off dining, locking incoming students into the most expensive meal plans. The system is making the University some money, if a $20 million investment in dining is any indicator. That said, universities should not only be about making money. University Dining is supposed to provide students with a place to eat healthy food and interact with their peers. Making dining plans fully customizable would fulfill that goal and could even help generate greater revenue for the University.
Right now students can only purchase set meal plans that have little customization to them. This drives many people away from buying a meal plan altogether. Students may be able to add a set amount of Plus Dollars but ultimately everyone is stuck picking a pre-set package. I heard many friends express that they would get a meal plan that only had 75 or 25 swipes if only there were the option. As of now they have no choice but to purchase an inadequate meal plan or nothing at all. Allowing students to choose their meal plans would encourage larger number of students to buy dining plans. People are clearly not buying a more expensive service. Upperclassmen do want some access to University Dining locations, they just don’t want to have to pay more money than they have to.
Customization has been proved to work in bringing in new customers and profits. The cable TV market was dominated for the longest time by large cable companies that sold television channels bundled together. Even to this day, people have cable packages where they barely watch one tenth of the channels they have. Then came the rise of services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. These companies provide a greater choice and customization than the big cable companies. The whole cable industry has shifted due to these on-demand services. For example, HBO recently announced plans to offer HBO GO as a standalone service. Consumers love these new services that give them more freedom, and these on-demand companies are making record profits.
Besides the compelling economic reasons for allowing meal plan customization, it would also help student life on Grounds. Requiring meal plans for first-years and then offering bad deals for upperclassmen is effectively segregating the two groups. What’s more, upperclassmen have less incentive to be on Grounds without a meal plan since getting food is no longer convenient. Administrators always talk about building a community at the University, yet this practice actively pulls us apart. Just spending time on Grounds with other people from the University helps strengthen our community, and the more people involved, the stronger the University community grows.
There is also the matter of healthy eating. While many upperclassmen eat healthy meals, most college diets are less than nutritious. Dining halls might provide some unhealthy options, but University Dining also offers very good healthy options. The whole point of University Dining should be to promote healthy eating habits, and if it is failing to reach many of the students at the University something needs to change. More people getting meal plans could be a way to promote healthy living at the University.
This isn’t an unproven idea. The University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth and the University of California, Irvine have experimented with more customized meal plans. They both saw revenues and customer satisfaction shoot up. Students clearly want to use dining services, they’re just being stopped by the lack of options. University Dining needs to give people full customization, for the service’s own sake and the University community as a whole.
Bobby Doyle is an Opinion columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at b.doyle@cavalierdaily.com.
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