We all know college costs a lot of money. We also know that there aren’t a whole lot of ways to avoid the costs. Things cost money. Upkeep of the facilities, food, electric, heating, air conditioning, water – it all costs money. Money that all college students are made to pay. On top of the necessities, there’s the student activity fee, probably a parking permit and the cost of actual classes.

All of this is to be expected and we are raised to be cynical of what our money is actually going towards. How did that new quad get there? Who paid for that new furniture? Where did the university get the money to build that new building? Normally the answer is donations, which is why every technology filled room or building is named after someone.

But what if there were universities and schools that were actually increasing the meal plan cost to pay for things other than the meal plan?

Unfortunately, this isn’t a matter of what if, but which schools are doing it.

On December 6, 2015, The New York Times published an article, "Meal Plan Costs Tick Upward as Students Pay for More Than Food" written by Stephanie Saul on this very subject. Saul wrote, “For the first time this year, the University of Tennessee imposed a $300-per-semester dining fee on…about 12,000…undergraduates, including commuters, who do not purchase other meal plans. The extra money will help finance a $177 million student union.”

This is just one example of dining plans and contracts not being put to use properly. There has been a trend of universities or colleges signing long term contracts (around 20 years) with their large dining contractors who offer to pay for campus improvements in exchange. They’ve also offered to pay for academic programs. While this may seem nice – the school just locks in with this company for a decade or two and said company will help them out, it’s pretty dangerous. Saul wrote that one of the dining contractors that had signed this long term agreement had several facilities “…temporarily closed by the county health department, which found rodent droppings and a roach infestation.” Some of these projects the contractors promise to help out with also never come to pass. “At South Carolina State University…a 2014 audit found that students paid $343 a year in ‘hidden costs’ for food. The money was rebated to the institution by its vendor…partly to pay for a $5 million wellness center, which was never built.”

While this is nice on the surface level, it still makes my head turn. Did the school really need to renovate that building? Did the school really need to improve that quad? Or create that one? I’ve always wondered why the school couldn’t have implored their donors to donate towards a program as opposed to donating towards something that frankly, wouldn’t do much on the academic side of things. Personally, I could care less how impressive the student union looks, or how nice the grass looks. I just want an affordable education.

It hasn’t been a mystery that college meal plan costs have gone up over the past few years, mainly driven by the non-processed, hormone-free, locally grown movement, except the money that the schools are taking for the meal plans to accomplish this isn’t even going towards anything food related for the students that attend the school. They put the money in other places or create another scholarship, or pay for food for prospective students, which is false advertising at its finest. If students are paying the increasing prices of a meal plan, it should go towards the meal plan. I’m all for scholarships and academic programs, I really am. I’m sure all of us want to go to the best school that we can afford, but therein lies the problem – it’s becoming increasingly unaffordable. Why should students that don’t need a meal plan be forced to pay for one? A meal plan should be a choice, not a requirement.

Colleges and universities,

I know you easily make a million dollars a year from student tuition. That’s a lot of money. Granted a good chunk is taken from utilities and costs of classes, but there has to be better way to go about this, because it’s no mistake that these institutions are trying to make a profit, and since when did education ever provide anyone with profits? Ask any grade school teacher and they’re not in it for the money. It’s never a mystery when you’re crying from lack of funds. If you’re whining about such a thing then there is no reason for unneeded spending, and instead of letting your donors pay for more useless paint jobs or furniture or an unneeded building renovation to try to make more students spend time in that particular building (trust me, it’s happened), maybe you should just hire one of your personal finance professors to tell you where to invest and where to save money, because taking money from teenagers that are so poor they can’t even afford to go out to a movie on the weekend, and then not doing what you say you will with that money is disgusting. We are not stupid, especially when it comes to our food. If the burgers taste like burnt Styrofoam one year, our meal plan bill goes up the next and the burgers still taste like burnt Styrofoam, we’ll know you didn’t do anything about it.

So here’s your chance, do something about it.