Don't college students have a meal plan? An expensive meal plan, no less?

The answer is yes. Most colleges require students living on campus to have some sort of meal plan. At my University, we are required to either have the 19 meal plan or the 14 meal plan. So, essentially, we can have the highest number of meals, but not the lowest. Why? It's a question I ask myself every day when I'm done trying to guess what type of meat is layered beneath the caked on, broken sauce.

So, excuse me if I spend my money on other food options when I know, trust me, I know, how much my meal plan is costing me, my family, and Sallie Mae.

The saddest part? It seems like at my University that we, students, are paying these large sums of money for food that we are not happy with. But what can we do about it? We are forced to continue to eat the same bland, processed, artificial, frozen not fresh food daily.

Don't get me wrong. Some of their dishes are good. And eating there once or twice a week wouldn't be bad. But twice or three times a day, every day over the span of two semesters?

It's not working for me or other students.

So, yes, this is why we, college students, eat out every once in a while. Okay, maybe more, but still. It's nice to have a change.

So when your parents ask where all your money is going, the typical and most likely answer is food.