Are College Meal Plans worth it?
Anna Brandl
College students across the United States are faced with multiple decisions when it comes to their college education. Many of these decisions are monetary whether it be dorms, textbooks, or tuition, but often students are left wondering which decisions are best for them. One of these decisions is meal plans. Students already are paying for tuition and dorms, and most of the time students are left to wonder if a meal plan is really worth the cost. Based on observation of average cost for meal plans and tuition, the worth of college meal plans varies for each student.
An average college charges about $4,500 a year for a meal plan consisting of three meals a day. That averages out to around $18.75 a day. This cost adds up quickly, and by the time a student finishes college, they would have spent $18,000 on this meal plan alone. With college students spending money on these meal plans, the economy is losing out on consumers spending a great deal of money on supplies like groceries. Students spend large amounts of money on meal plans that often don’t get utilized to the full extent. Shown in the bar graph pictured to the left, we can see that some college students are spending over $7,000 on a meal plan. Rather than using only the meals provided by their school, students purchase substitute goods such as snacks, microwavable meals, and other food items that often prevent them from using their meal plans, thus causing the benefit of the plan to decrease.
The debate of college meal plans depends greatly on the marginal cost and benefits of each plan. For a student who plans to buy most of their own groceries or have dietary restrictions that limit their food choices, spending $4,500 on a meal plan doesn’t provide a great enough benefit to outweigh the cost. Instead, these students are paying more money than they need to which could have been used to pay for tuition or textbooks. The opportunity cost in this situation is that if students pay for a meal plan - no matter what options that their college provides - then they don’t have that money to put into another aspect of their education. The student who paid more than the average of $4,500 shown in the bar graph, would be losing out on much more expenses that could be used for a substitute good like groceries. Another opportunity cost is that if students rely fully on the meal plan to use it to the full extent, then said students lose out on the opportunity to learn necessary life skills like cooking. Also, one downfall to meal plans is that they hike up tuition costs which causes the students to have to weigh in the benefits and costs once again.
In conclusion, it cannot be denied that meal plans for college students have cost students a lot of money that could have been spent on other things. However, it cannot be determined if they are worth it or not because each person has a different situation, and most importantly it comes down to whether or not the marginal benefit outweighs the cost for each individual.
Works Cited
Mathewson, Tara García. “A Tough-to-Swallow Reason College Keeps Costing More: the Price of Meal Plans.” The Hechinger Report, 30 Mar. 2020, hechingerreport.org/tough-swallow-reason-college-keeps-costing-price-meal-plans/.
Rogak, Lisa. “College Meal Plan vs. No Meal Plan: The Debate.” College Covered, 30 July 2020, www.collegecovered.com/getting-into-college/college-meal-plan-vs-no-meal-plan-the-debate/.
I though it was really interesting that that a meal plan starts at $4500. Which personally I think that is a ripoff. Do you think that if there was no meal plans students would be saving money or do you think that the would end up paying more. $18.75 a day isn’t bad but when tuition, dorms, and books costs around $20,000 for four years to me that extra expense isn't worth it. Especially because students usually don’t have that much income after college and that is probably an extra year or two in order to pay off the student loans.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is a lot of money wasted on meal plans, but one thought I have is what should students do when they are required to purchase a meal plan to be able to stay in the dorms? Would the saving on the cost of a meal plan be worth not being able to stay in a dorm, or if that was the case would you purchase the meal plan even if it is expensive and not worth how much you will end up paying for it. However, I do agree that there are benefits and negatives to purchasing a meal plan.
ReplyDelete$18.75 a day seems about right if you were to eat three meals a day. Although it is recommended to have three meals a day, most college students don't eat three meals a day. I think that if you are utilizing this meal plan to the fullest and eating your three meals a day, the benefit is more than the cost. However, like you said, that college student is missing out on valuable life skills like learning how to budget for groceries, and what foods you need to buy. On the other hand, as a college student it might be beneficial to not have to worry about budgeting and planning on what foods you need to buy, so that you can focus on school. Personally, if there was a 'snack' meal plan, where you can get snack items like you can here at Pewaukee, I would pay for that. I cannot see myself paying $4,500 a year for a meal plan, as you don't know what will be served everyday, and you may not have time to grab a meal before a class.
ReplyDeleteMeal plans are definitely a large investment. It looks pretty good on paper, 18.75 a day is 6.25 a meal which isn't a whole lot when you consider the benefit of not having to cook or spend time deciding on a meal. But you're right, that price really adds up. I think a lot more students would benefit from multiple types of meal plans, maybe for only one or two meals a day. It might be difficult to get colleges to agree on that since they would be losing money, but I think it would ultimately work out better for everyone because a cheaper meal plan could definitely be a factor in students' college search.
ReplyDeleteI think meal plans are more negative and mostly don't have the benefits outweigh the cost. You said it cannot be determined because each person has a different situation which I do agree with to a certain extent but even if a person has a lot of money and can spend it on the meal plans and all the textbooks the meal plans are still extremely expensive and I feel the opportunity cost of getting groceries, and Learning skills like cooking still outweigh the benefits you get from a meal plan.
ReplyDeleteCollege Meal Plans are something I rarely account into the price of college for some reason. $18.75 seems expensive-a little over $6 per meal- for public universities to be charging their students to eat. Your stat on the $18000 to eat for four years is interesting, however I know a lot of students that only buy the meal plan for their freshman year. This is because of the high cost and students typically choose to reside off-campus after their first year. Because I personally do not have any dietary restrictions, I found it interesting in your second to last paragraph that you debated the costs/benefits of purchasing a meal plan for people with different situations such as dietary restrictions. I think if most people took the time to do this the meal plans at universities would not be purchased as often as they are. Parents of college freshmen/college freshmen themselves typically feel uncomfortable not enrolling in the meal plan--making it a common unnecessary expense. A lot of schools offer different options for dining as well so hopefully people are age will consider what they really need based off of the plan and its price.
ReplyDeleteAs many of us are going into college in the next few years, this is a very relevant and important topic! In my anecdotal experience (from my two sisters in college), the meal plans are heavily overpriced and typically underused, an issue that you do address. However, though groceries are stated as an alternative, would some unaware college students be clueless about maximizing their money and thus not save much, if any? Also, the limited time that college students have must be considered, as food plans are convenient and efficient, increasing their appeal. Finally, different colleges traditionally offer multiple meal plans, some of which only include one meal/day, or two meals/day, therefore preventing waste. In all though, your writing is extremely insightful and well-researched!
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting topic! When thinking about college, I have never thought about meals plans, but this is definitely something that needs to be considered. If people who got a meal plan used it for all three of their meals, or even two meals a day, I think that the price would definitely be worth it. You said that the cost comes down to an average of about $18.75 a day, that is close to what some people spend at certain restaurants for one meal or a meal and an appetizer. The fact that some people pay around that price for one meal and the meal plan offers three meals for that price definitely makes the cost seem more worth it to me. But as I said, I think that it would be a good idea as long as you got at least two meals everyday.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading through this I agreed with the majority of what you were saying throughout the post. I was wondering however what the average cost a student spends over a college semester or year that isn't using one of the meal plans and how big of a difference the cost is to one that is utilizing the meal plan. I bring this up as I would believe that majority of students aren't making the most cost effective choices in regards to both their own food and even health. In the end I do believe it still is a case by case scenario as to which students would be better off with or without the meal plan I just believe that information could be helpful in an argument for one side or another.
ReplyDeleteHi Anna! I really enjoyed reading your piece, especially because it revolved around something we are all heading to in the near future, college. College expenses are not fun to figure out, especially with all of the forrerent meal plans. I did not know that the average college student spends around $18,000 on a meal plan! That’s a lot of money and it does add up quickly. I really enjoyed how you talked about opportunity cost, what we learned about in the first unit, and then also connected this to the second unit were in now, talking about substitute goods and consumers spending on substitute goods like groceries. I really enjoyed how you incorporated all of this into your blog post,it shows you really know what you’re talking about and I never really connected meal plans to economics until reading your piece!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this blog post because I think that college is something that alot of us are thinking about right now. Not only that, but my family and I have specifically looked at the benefits of a meal plan as well. I like how you put into perspective the point of dietary restrictions that a person might have, and/or if someone is going to want lots of things such as snacks and homemade meals (which would require groceries and defeat the full purpose of a meal plan). If you were to choose at this point, what do you think that you would choose? I personally think that a mix of both cooking your own meals and having some supplied to you is a great mix. And, economically, I wouldn’t want to waste all of my money on something that I would’nt even utilize to the fullest extent.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the $4,500 meal plan, it doesn’t seem like that much of an extra cost compared to the cost of the tuition itself and, taking into account that it’s just over $18 a day, it seems pretty worth it. However, Anna mentioned so many other factors such as the loss of learning important life skills and most of the potential of the plan being wasted. In the post, she made it seem like whether or not a student uses the full potential of the meal plan, it would have negative impacts: either relying too heavily on the plan and not learning how to cook for yourself, meal plan, and grocery shop, or not relying on it enough and then wasting thousands of dollars. I do agree that college meal plans may be helpful for some students and it depends on the situation of the individual to a great extent. For me personally, I don’t think a meal plan would be the best use of my money because I’m kind of picky and like having the freedom to choose what I want to eat and when, but I could also see that leading to over spending by eating out too much and not cooking myself the food I bought. All in all, it depends on if the student is monetarily responsible and self-accountable for their eating and spending habits. If a student knows that they would overspend without the meal plan, then I think it could be beneficial to them, on the other hand, if they think that they wouldn’t spend their money frivolously on food, then it may be more beneficial for them to take more control over their meal planning. In the end, I really enjoyed this post because it was so relevant to me and helped me weigh out the pros and cons of this decision.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about your topic because this is a relevant topic for seniors right now. I agree that the meal plans are expensive and not worth it for everyone, but I think that there are many factors that play into whether or not you use a meal plan. When you’re staying in a dorm you have little access to appliances that would allow you to make your own food, so meal plans are a good alternative so you can have healthy meals. One thing that I noticed in the colleges I applied to was that their meal plans are unlimited. I wonder why they chose to do that? Was it because they could charge more for it or because students complained about being hungry? Probably both but I think that’s an interesting question. Another thing that I find interesting is that there are a variety of other ways to get food on campus that don’t accept meal plans. For the people that would choose these other options, a meal plan is probably not beneficial for them because they would spend more of their money on the other options rather than in the dining hall. This, I believe, is just one way that colleges are trying to get more money out of broke college students.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I believe that most meal plans are worth it. College is very stressful and the convenience of having easily accessible meals means that they are more easily able to get food without resorting to the rather unhealthy alternatives, like most microwave meals and snacks. Students, especially now, also have limited access to tools to make their own food, even simple things like ovens or stoves. While economically it may not be worth it, I think that the health benefits are more than worth it. Sure, you might be able to get away with only living on five dollars a day, but it won't be fun to eat only fast food, eat less, or find an oven or stove at all times. Not to mention storing ingredients. I believe that meal plans are simply more convenient for college students.
ReplyDeleteThis brings up a good point about cooking on your own versus going out. It seems like a good idea for some people to get a meal plan but this would be interesting to see compared with people who live outside the dorms. Is the meal plan worth not buying all the extra cooking supplies or not?
ReplyDeleteI was shocked reading the comment of $4,500 meal plans would actually be worth at the end of college $18,000. That is a HUGE steal when considering the amount of food that actually gets you as a student. However, it also brings up the idea of how does this affect the idea of making the food yourself. I found this to be very interesting as you would be getting diverse foods from the school when if you were wanting to be cheaper, you would have your pizza rolls, macaroni and cheese, and ramen noodles so often that it would become very old very fast.
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