College meal plans

AlistarWills · Jan 16, 2019

So I have a HS Sr planning on going off to college next year. Looking at UAH (Engineering). Just yesterday got the full tally on all the fees and stuff that totals up more than tuition (I guess that’s why they so freely give merit scholarships). Had never seen the listing for the mandatory meal plan. It was conveniently excluded in websites and such that we looked at. $3200/yr which in my mind is absurd. I think the whole meal plan thing is a racket to start with.
I saw part of the contract for the dining vendor at UAB once and it basically said that they promised the vendor they’d make at least $X and so to make that happen they force the students to buy the plan. At the end of the Spring semester you’d see kids standing outside offering to buy folks a meal for the cost in cash so they could get their money back.

CrimsonForce · Jan 17, 2019

AlistarWills said:
So I have a HS Sr planning on going off to college next year. Looking at UAH (Engineering). Just yesterday got the full tally on all the fees and stuff that totals up more than tuition (I guess that’s why they so freely give merit scholarships). Had never seen the listing for the mandatory meal plan. It was conveniently excluded in websites and such that we looked at. $3200/yr which in my mind is absurd. I think the whole meal plan thing is a racket to start with.
I saw part of the contract for the dining vendor at UAB once and it basically said that they promised the vendor they’d make at least $X and so to make that happen they force the students to buy the plan. At the end of the Spring semester you’d see kids standing outside offering to buy folks a meal for the cost in cash so they could get their money back.

I graduated from UAH recently. I was married and living off campus so I was able to sign a waiver to have the meal plan fee waived. I think they'll waive if the student is married and / or lives off campus. I think there were a few other situations in which they would waive it but not many. In the situation you described you're probably stuck paying it. Especially if he's living on campus or in a dorm..

AlistarWills · Jan 17, 2019

I swear it seems like they are just trying to find ways to make college more and more expensive.

CrimsonForce said:
I graduated from UAH recently. I was married and living off campus so I was able to sign a waiver to have the meal plan fee waived. I think they'll waive if the student is married and / or lives off campus. I think there were a few other situations in which they would waive it but not many. In the situation you described you're probably stuck paying it. Especially if he's living on campus or in a dorm..

Elefantman · Jan 17, 2019

Most popular college meal plan:

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

CrimsonForce · Jan 18, 2019

AlistarWills said:
I swear it seems like they are just trying to find ways to make college more and more expensive.

Have you son look into the jump program at UAH - or at least that's what it was called when I was there. The last 2 years or so (upper level classes) UAH allows students to get graduate credit for undergraduate classes. So for instance if there's an engineering class he's taking called ENG400 he could take ENG500 and get graduate level credit. It's the same class the only difference in the 2 classes is you had to write a research paper to get the graduate level credit. It will save a tremendous amount of time and money if he has any desire for a masters degree..

Tidewater · Jan 19, 2019

Trying studiously to void entering into politics, it is my view that colleges use near-resort style food as a recruiting tool, because competition is fierce to get students and students like eating well (especially if someone else is paying the food bill and that someone does not see the bill until the decision to attend X institution has already been made).
When I was an undergraduate student at Alabama, tuition was $348/semester. Not per hour. Per semester. My meal plan was macaroni and cheese ($.19/box). This is part of the reason college students are graduating with tens of thousands of student loan debt that will take decades to pay off.

If I was 18 years old now, I would live at home, under dad's roof, eating mom's chow and wash clothes using mom's washing machine for the first two years of college. Then I would get into the best four-year state school I could get into* (because that is all that goes on the diploma) and avoid student loan debt like the plague. (I may have to undertake some debt, but I would work hard to minimize that debt).
Good luck in today's environment.

* Virginia has a program under which a student attends a community college for the first two years, and, depending on his GPA, gets automatic admission into the state universities (3.6 for UVA, 3.4 for Va Tech, 3.2 for James Madison, etc.) This is great deal, but the student has to bust his butt the first two years to get that GPA because if he screws around and earns a 2.0, he ain't going anywhere.

JTH · Jan 20, 2019

There was a similar policy at the university I attended. If you were a freshman, you were forced to buy the basic meal plan. This plan only gave you 8 meals a week and the cost was $1500 a semester. After your freshman year, you were no longer forced to buy the plan. As you stated, most of us didn't want it, didn't use it, and swiped others in for meals when we did use it.

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