Overpriced College Shit

So, as much of my generation understands, college prices are rising while average incomes are not. But I'm not ranting today about the bullshit of spending $20K + a year for living away at an INSTATE college. I'm here to rant about the bullshit of the college "meal plan".

Every university does it a little differently, but it's all the same. First off, the crap food you get is overpriced. Now don't get me wrong, some of the choices are quite delicious. But plastic-tasting macaroni, greasy pizza and a slice of pie shouldn't come out to about $8. In high school, it would've cost $5 and students were complaining then. But the majority of meals are much more expensive than that. I usually spend about $10 for rice, some meat and veges and a soda. The meat isn't even quality - I constantly pick around at bits of fatty, tough or grisly meat and I've even gotten a chip of bone a couple of times.

Next, they force you to buy a "meal plan". My average meal plan costs me around $1950 (a couple dollars short). It's fucking ridiculous. $1900 worth of food for 3 months? You're shitting me. That's roughly $160 a WEEK on just food. But no, not only does that NOT roll over to the next semester, it also gets $500 skimmed off the top for a "facilities fee". The university does NOT pay for having food available on campus. The on-campus student does. So you pay $1950 for the following breakdown 1049 meal points, 275 special points, and 16 meals at the new all-you-can-eat place. The special points are the good ones - you can go to the university-run convenience stores on campus and buy things at ridiculous prices ($1.50 for 450mL of juice, $4 for a half gallon of juice, $5.50 for a tray of 30 oreos, just to name a couple). They have emergency school supplies, medical supplies, etc as well. The meal points and special points are essentially dollars named points. The meals are usually $18 a pop, but are included in your plan at a discounted rate.

But wait, there's more! So if you include all of the cash points, you have roughly $110 a week to spend. That's still really high and training students to start terrible habits. Between the two of them, my dad and brother usually spend around $75 a week on what I get $110 for. And as I mentioned above, if I don't use all of my remaining $250 in the next week and a half, I loose it. This is with me treating my roommates to a fancy restaurant using those points and dishing out money to pay for the special all-you-can-eat place about 6 times. Part of it is I don't eat much, part of it is I go home on the weekends for work.

So that's based on the "average" plan. So I looked into the "additional" options offered after your first year on campus. The CHEAPEST meal plan offered is at a whopping $1749.50. That's not even the best part - for that $200 discount, you get ONLY 304 points. My roommate was saying they add up differently and are not equivalent to dollars at all, but with her eating every other meal from home (mother sending her food all the time) and her going home every weekend, she'll barely have enough points at the end of the semester. So my option is go hungry and carefully keep track of where I eat OR spend $200 more on something I don't need? I'm torn.

College is a bitch.