By Kristi Schweitzer | Echo
I don't have any morning classes, so I can go to breakfast anytime. My morning meal times vary from day to day, but one thing is always constant: the nearly-nonexistent breakfast traffic at the Dining Commons.
I go to breakfast at 7, 8 and 9 a.m. on any day of the week only to find the DC sparsely occupied by students taking in their first meal of the day (besides the occasional 8:30 bustle). Most students' first meal starts a few hours later.
Since I don't go to breakfast, why should I have to pay for it? This is a question many students ask. Graduate students and off-campus students have the option of lowering their expenses by buying a smaller meal plan or block plan. Many on-campus students feel Taylor's meal system is unfair and that by not going to every meal, they are throwing money away. If they could only have the option of a smaller meal plan then they'd save money. Is this true?
As a transfer student from Cedarville University, I have experienced firsthand what it is like to have a block plan. For about the same price as the meal plan here, I had the option of "saving" meals instead of "skipping," but I ate about the same number of meals. So when I skip breakfast here, am I really "wasting" money? I don't think so.
Taylor's meal plan is cheaper than most colleges' meal plans. "Of the 28 private colleges in Indiana, the TU room and board rate is ranked 22 of 28," said Ron Sutherland, vice president of Business Administration.
Charging every student the same price for meals lowers costs in the end. Sutherland said Taylor is aware of the average number of meals eaten and that the universal cost helps average out students' prices.
"We believe we have priced the meal plan to take into account that most people do not eat all 21 meals," Sutherland said. "In fact, we know what the average participation per meal is for breakfast, lunch and dinner. If students were to start eating more of any or all of these meals, we would have to raise the price higher to accommodate the greater use."
He believes a block plan would hinder the system, rather than help it.
"Our assessment (of the block plan) when we have talked about doing this is that students would still eat the same number of meals, but simply pay less," Sutherland said. "That means the TU budget loses revenue and will not save many (if any) expenses. The only choice left, without cutting other areas of the University budget outside of food service, would be to raise prices for the block meal plans to offset the loss in revenue."
Of course, we don't want our prices to go up.
After doing some research, I found that average room and board costs ranged from $9,205 to $10,462 at private colleges, according to CollegeBoard. Taylor is a private college, and yet its room and board total is $7,110, less than both public and private averages.
Sutherland also said the primary reason for one meal plan option is "philosophical."
"We believe that Taylor's community is enhanced around food and the meal times spent together," he said. "By asking students who live on campus to share all their meals together when on campus, we believe we are fostering an intentional community around food."
When I was at Cedarville, almost everyone had some form of smaller plan, and that sometimes hindered community building. Many students on this campus do devotions together at breakfast. Even though they aren't talking, they are still gathering together in community. At Cedarville, students were more apt to skip out on a moment like that because their smaller meal plan didn't allow them to eat breakfast. They paid a similar price to ours yet "couldn't" go to breakfast, so for the most part, our current meal plan is a good one. But if you still feel like you're being cheated, go to breakfast.
