Construction at every corner, grad student’s funding being cut, and now our dining program is being completely revamped. It’s abundantly clear to everyone on campus that UK is changing.

I don’t pretend to know how to run a University, and I don’t pretend that I could do it better than it’s being done. But placing rigid restrictions on students' use of their own meal swipes, among other dining policies, seems like a strange place to focus on in efforts to improve UK student life.

I transferred to the Big Blue Nation because I fell in love with it. But when I can’t register for a class because I owe less than $400 after the ten-thousand-plus dollars I’ve already paid for my tuition; when parking tickets are easier to acquire than the common cold; and textbooks cost fifteen times more than what you could pay for them on Amazon; I can’t help but feel that UK is seeing its students as dollar signs rather than people.

Marjorie Kirk of the Kentucky Kernel describes the new dining plan regulations in the following article. The article tells us that a student can no longer share swipes for meals with another person, and they cannot swipe more than once during the hours of 7am-1030am, 1030am-4pm, and 4pm-8pm.             

So, you mean to tell me, that those who wake up at eleven and want to grab lunch at three can no longer do that? The nearly six hour time period you’ve created is supposed to magically work for everyone? I’m wondering if those who created this new idea have ever experienced college dining. Millennials are constantly being made fun of for not knowing how to wake up before ten, and now, if we want to eat three meals a day, we certainly must. 

 You’re telling me that you can no longer look out for a friend by swiping for her in-between paychecks? How much money is it actually saving you? By sharing swipes with others, is it possible that a person could potentially buy more? The six dollars I'm going to spend on a Firenza is enough to make about three Firenzas at home. I have a hard time believing that this no sharing swipes idea is really going to save them THAT much money as their prices on the food sold is pretty ridiculous.  

As expressed several times in all of their articles and FAQ’s on their website, these changes are to expand and better the dining experience, and apparently some top universities have taken the approach of hiring an outside party to provide the campus dining experience. Have you not already robbed us blind with textbook and tuition costs? On-campus and off-campus living is not cheap either. One has to sacrifice paying more to walk to campus, or paying less so you have to drive to campus and pay for a parking pass. 

It's also evident in the UK Dining Twitter handle that students have plenty to say about these new changes. See it here, I can't say that the responses given are especially helpful, but the act of giving students a chance to voice their concerns does make them appear to be slightly concerned for student's input. 

The school that I transferred from is nowhere near as amazing as UK, but what I will say is that it cared about people, and your dining plan gave you exactly what you paid for. Students weren’t punished by being unable to sign up for classes that they need. And trust me, there were more than enough parking spaces for everyone on campus.