Missed meals mean missed money

editorial cartoon by Kevin Johnstone
editorial cartoon by Kevin Johnstone

Ranting and raving about the quality of Davenport and Spot food is nothing new to the University of La Verne campus. Complaints about undercooked, greasy, tasteless food that leaves its connoisseurs with heartburn is something that most ULV students deal with. Yet, the price residents are paying for consuming this food is more than just a few hours of uncomfortable indigestion – it is either $1,055 or $1,250 per semester.

This healthy sum of money includes either 12 or 19 meals a week, respectively-meal plans residents are required to purchase. This allows the student either two or three meals a day, even if he chooses not to eat them. If students can only tolerate one meal a day in Davenport and they have the 12-meal plan, they have lost anywhere from $4.05 to $6.50. For some, this loss of money is of no object to avoid an evening of chicken casserole and nausea, but the problem is that every resident is paying for this missed meal in her meal plan.

Meanwhile, at the Spot, students are given $3.05 for breakfast, $3.40 for lunch and $3.90 for dinner. While some students scramble to spend the full amount by throwing in three packs of gum and a bag of chips, other students are just slightly short. There is no sharing money or swapping change and any left over money disappears after each meal.

Another injustice is the fact that, regardless of the amount of food one consumes in Davenport, he or she is charged one lump sum. For a hungry football player who eats nearly half a pizza for dinner, it costs only $6.50. For a student that grabs a muffin on the way to class, she is charged the same $6.50.

One solution is to charge per meal. Students choose and pay for their meal plan at the beginning of the semester, but would receive a refund or a credit at the end of the semester. Another solution might be to break the meal plan down to a per-week cost, and to credit the cardholder the remaining money from each meal. This would allow students who have not spent the full value over the week to eat on the weekends. A refund? Extra money? This must be a new concept for the food service industry. Of course, Aramark may lose a little bit of money, but isn’t it the poor, college students who could use this money, especially since it was their hard-earned money to begin with?

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