The College Series: Do you really need a meal plan?
With back to school rearing its ugly head, students (and parents) are probably caught in a myriad of decisions. One thing that may be up for discussion is what meal plan you should get, if one at all. If you’re a freshman, your school or university may require you to get some sort of meal plan. But if you’re a sophomore or older, you may be wondering if you should re-enroll in your school’s food plan. It may seem like an easy decision because...well, you have to eat, but often meal plans are underutilized and may not be worth your money. It’s no surprise that meal plans are expensive.
In this article, we will cover the basics and questions you should ask yourself when deciding if you really need a meal plan. Many college students are already struggling to deal with the costs of tuition, room and board, but adding the expensive costs of a dining plan makes it even more difficult.
So, what is a meal plan?
A meal plan is pre-paid account for your on-campus meals. Before the semester starts, you may enroll and pay for a designated meal plan. A meal plan can offer different amounts of value, like unlimited access to all the dining halls, flexible points or cash you can use at campus convenience stores, or guest entries you can use on visiting friends and family. You will typically use your student ID or special meal card every time you enter a specific dining area or conduct a transaction at a designated campus restaurant. Your swipes may count towards a certain meal plan limit, or the value of the meal may be deducted from your pre-paid account.
What kind of meal plans are there?
Meal plans vary greatly from school to school. Not only do they vary in the type of food options and perks, but they vary greatly in price too. With schools also being hybrid nowadays, some schools may also offer limited options for dorming students if the regular cafeterias aren’t open. There can be smaller meal plans for part-time students and larger, unlimited dining options for full-time students. There can be meal plans specifically for freshmen, and there can be meal plans only offered for commuters. Be sure to check what kind of meal plan options your school offers.
For example, pre-pandemic, this was my school’s meal plan system:
Freshmen and sophomores were required to purchase a meal plan, selecting a plan from the list of A to E below:
• A Plan: Unlimited, Continuous Dining, 5 Guest entries / semester - $1,944
• B Plan: Unlimited, Continuous Dining, 5 Guest entries / semester, 100 flex points - $2,044
• C Plan: Unlimited, Continuous Dining, 5 Guest entries / semester, 200 flex points - $2,144
• E Plan: Unlimited, Continuous Dining, 5 Guest entries / semester, 600 flex points - $2,544
Meal Plans F to H are available for juniors and seniors:
• F Plan: 80 entries per semester, 5 Guest meals, 400 flex points - $1,376
• G Plan: 1,114 flex points ($300 fixed expenses) - $1,414
• H Plan: 80 entries per semester, 5 Guest meals - $976
• J Plan: 5 meals a week, breakfast or lunch - $764
The amount of the meal plan was encoded onto our student ID card and all we needed to do was swipe our ID to complete the transaction. So did I need a meal plan? I’ll get to that in the end.
How much do meal plans cost?
As you can see from my school example above, meal plans are expensive. Even at the most basic plan, a freshman had to shell out almost $2,000 for a meal plan, per semester. I went to a public research university, basically a STEM school, so it wasn’t small, but it wasn’t crazily large either. Meal plans can cost a lot more at other schools. Meal plans are a big part of your room and board costs, so keep that in mind when accessing your college expenses.
We’ll use my school example above. Let’s say you got the first meal plan that was $1,944. Assume you actually try to eat all three meals a day for a semester (3.5 months or about 105 days), that’s about 315 meals. That means with this meal plan, each meal costs about $6.17. That’s not bad! But realistically, you probably won’t want to eat there three times a day. Sometimes you’ll sleep in and skip breakfast. Sometimes you’ll catch dinner with friends at a local joint that’s off-campus. Sometimes you’ll just be home for the weekend. Sometimes you just hate the food. Sometimes you have a stash of food in the dorm to munch on. These factors are what influence your frequency, meaning it affects your cost per meal. You don’t want to pick a plan that has more meals than you can or are willing to eat. While meal prices aren’t unreasonable when the plan is used to its fullest potential, it can quickly become expensive if you use it less and less.
Do you need to buy a meal plan?
Many schools actually require first-year students, or freshmen, to get a meal plan. Sometimes they even make sophomores enroll in a plan. Schools normally require freshmen to have a mandatory meal plan for several reasons.
Many students have never lived on their own before, so college is a huge transition for them. With that being said, a lot of students don’t know how to cook. Schools don’t want students to have to worry about food, so they’re better off requiring students to have a meal plan to satiate their needs.
Many freshmen dormitories and resident halls don’t have kitchens. Some dorms may have a communal kitchen or two, but you can’t expect to share it all the time with so many other students, nor do you really want to deal with cleaning it!
Going to the dining hall (or other food places on campus) is a social activity. Going to the dining hall with a few people from your floor or with a few classmates is an effortless way to make new friends. This helps acclimate students to college life. A happy student body is a good thing.
Your school is making money from it, duh! There’s no surprise that your college probably has a deal with a food service provider and is getting a cut from all the meal plans that students are enrolled in.
You don’t want to be overspending on food, but you don’t want to starve either. Once you’re no longer a freshman (or sophomore), you will have the decision to re-enroll in a meal plan or abandon campus dining altogether. So how do you make that decision? There are several ways to assess the value of a meal plan and whether or not it’s a good option for you.
After reviewing the costs of your school’s meal plan options, here are some questions you should think about before making a selection:
What are the dining options on and off-campus? Are there multiple dining halls/cafeterias? What about restaurants? Are there better food options off-campus?
Will you really go to the dining hall enough, so that the cost-per-meal is fairly low? Or are you spending $2k and only going a few times a week?
Do you have a kitchen accessible in your dorm? And is it clean enough that you are willing to use it?
Can you or are you willing to cook?
If you have a kitchen available, is it easy or convenient to shop for groceries? Do you have a car on campus, if you need to shop elsewhere?
Do you have any dietary needs? What are the options if you eat kosher, halal, or have any allergies, intolerances, or are following a certain diet? Does the campus offer enough or satisfactory options for your needs?
If the meal plan comes with credits or flexible dollars, do they roll over from semester to semester? Or do you use it or lose it?
If you’re a commuter, what meals are you typically on campus for? Commuters don’t have access to dorm kitchens, like resident students would.
Does the meal plan come with guest swipes and is it important to you that you can bring family/friends in?
These are all important questions to consider when narrowing down your options. All students have different eating and cooking habits. Some are perfectly fine eating at the dining hall, while others love to cook for themselves. Sometimes students grow out of it and get sick of campus food, while others may have the extra money to dine out all the time. It’s important you take it all into consideration because spending thousands of dollars or more a semester on food alone.
If I don’t enroll in a meal plan, how do I save money when it comes to food?
If you decide to feed yourself, there are several things to keep in mind.
Learn how to cook a few go-to recipes. They don’t have to be complicated, but they should be something you can make easily and change up if you’re feeling bored.
Buy quality groceries. Just because mom isn’t buying the groceries, doesn’t mean you should only be buying cereal, mac and cheese, and fruit snacks. Don’t forget your fruits and vegetables.
Don’t be afraid of frozen or canned. I hate when I spend money on veggies and then I forget they’re in the fridge and they rot away. If you can’t eat your food fast enough before it goes bad, consider buying frozen or canned.
Check if your school offers a shopping van. If you don’t have a car on campus, this van can help bring you back and forth to run errands. They usually run a specific schedule, so be sure to check. You’ll save yourself the Uber/Lyft ride.
Carpool with friends if you decide to go to the grocery store. I used to tag along with friends on late-night Walmart runs.
Cut a few coupons or two. Look out for deals at the grocery store or enroll in a (free) shoppers card/club so you can reap rewards.
Learn how to meal plan. This can help maximize the groceries you buy and plan out all of your meals for a few days, or the week.
Learn how to make your own coffee or tea. Buying a drink from your local Starbucks or Dunkin every day will surely add up, so avoid the cost by making it in your dorm.
See if you can get added to your parent’s Costco or bulk membership store and split the bulk buys with dormmates.
Set a budget for yourself for dining out and stick to it! You’re going to want to eat out every once in a while, so budget some money for it.
When I was in school, what did I end up doing?
I did a little of everything. I had an unlimited meal plan for my first two years at school. One semester I even tried a plan with some flex points. I went to the dining hall all the time for lunch and dinner. It was a great chance to take a break and catch up with friends. By the time I got to my 3rd year, I realized I didn’t really want to eat at the dining hall, but I also didn’t want to worry about having to cook all the time. I wasn’t that skilled either. That year I decided to get a fixed 80-meals per semester plan. When I was in my 4th and 5th year, I didn’t have a meal plan at all. I opted to just utilize the kitchens that were in my dorm at the time. Sometimes it wasn’t a problem and sometimes I found myself living out the stereotypical college life, scrounging up whatever money I had to buy some college kid groceries or going to events just for the free food.
All in all, relying on a meal plan is just as okay as deciding to opt out of campus dining. All that matters is that you’re realistic about your eating and spending habits and feeding yourself at a cost that works for you.
In the end, meal plans do cost money and if you are taking out loans, this means you are taking on debt to eat so being mindful about this expense is a good thing to do.
The College Series: Do you really need a meal plan?