Ask any student how they feel about the food in Barone – or don’t, because you can probably already guess the answer.
But hey, if you’re running in right before your 8 a.m. class, they have the morning essentials – a bowl of Special K, an orange, a bagel – whatever will get you through the morning. But do you know how much you’re paying for those meals? The school tells us the big numbers, but how much does each individual meal really cost?
It turns out that by paying for each meal individually in cash, either in Barone, Jazzman’s or The Stag, you’d actually end up saving money.
Let’s take a look at the most basic meal plan. 12 meals per week, 100 dining dollars for the semester… $2,365. How does one calculate each swipe? Subtract the dining dollars, as the prices you pay with them are equal to those of paying in cash. No discount for using so we’re left with… $2,265.
To calculate how many meals this plan gives you in a semester, one must multiply the amount of meals by the amount of weeks in a semester. This semester, we’ll give the generous number of 16 weeks (this includes the last half week of finals). So, 12×16 = 192 meals in a semester.
What’s next? Divide the amount of meals into the price of the plan without Dining Dollars.
2,265/192 = $11.80 for each swipe. Every time you swipe into Barone, you are paying over ten dollars. Forget a simple breakfast! A full dinner at the cafeteria is barely equal to that (in terms of satisfaction at least.) And that’s only the basic meal plan… Going by the same math, here’s a look at the others…
14 meals per week + 50 dining dollars/semester: $10.80 per swipe.
19 meals per week (no dining dollars): $8.55 per swipe.
10 meals per week + 300 dining dollars/semester: $14.78 per swipe.
7 meals per week + 600 dining dollars/semester: $19.33 per swipe
40 meals per semester + 200 dining dollars per semester: $11.25 per swipe.
65 meals per semester + 200 dining dollars per semester: $10.62 per swipe.
A call to the Stagcard office a week before school started revealed that paying in cash for each meal costs $6 for breakfast, $8 for lunch, and $10 for dinner. So technically, by paying in cash for both your Barone swipes and Dining Dollars, you would be saving money… except perhaps for the plan of nineteen meals a week. But let’s be serious – who wants to eat at Barone 19 times in a week?
So juniors and seniors, seriously consider the facts before you buy a meal plan. You could be saving you and your parents a lot of money for a meal plan that you barely use. (Sorry, freshman and sophomores, but you are forced into having one… thanks again, Fairfield.)
But if you already have a meal plan and are trying to get your money’s worth, why not grab an extra bagel on the way out for later? According to the Student Handbook, this is considered “stealing from the University.” A bagel that probably costs less than the spare change in your pocket. So the question is… who’s really stealing from whom?
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