Are meal plan restrictions really necessary? All students living on campus are forced to purchase some type of meal plan. These meal plans are paid for at the beginning of each semester, and plans give students a certain number of meals per week to be used at the cafeteria.

Recently, I discovered some of the restrictions to the meal plan that I was required to purchase. I was in the cafeteria on a Saturday and was informed that I had five meals left to use for the week. I thought it would be a good idea to stop in the cafeteria periodically for a snack throughout the day in order to get the most use out of my meal plan. I was quickly informed that in addition to only being allowed to eat in the cafeteria during certain time periods, I am also only allowed to use two meals on Saturdays and Sundays. No matter what I did, there would still be three meals wasted. I live an hour and half from campus and I do not own a car, which means I usually stay on campus during the weekends. That being said, it was frustrating to find out that there are so many restrictions on the use of meals which I have already paid for.

It seems unfair that students are not allowed to decide how they use their meals. Though everyone’s schedule is different, unused meals do not run over to the following week. You may be very busy one week and skip out on some meals, while the next week you may want to eat in the cafeteria more often. Life would be so much easier if students could use the meals that they already paid for when they need them.

Another aggravating restriction is the fact that students are not allowed to share meals with visiting family or friends. Because every meal on the meal plan has already been paid for. It only makes sense for students to be able to use what they have already bought however they wish to. I see no potential harm in allowing students to share their meals.

Since I have only attended Southeastern, I decided to research how nearby universities manage their meal plans and why the meal plan system operates the way it does. I spoke to someone in charge of campus dining at Nicholls University in Thibodaux, La. and discovered that their meal plans operate similarly to Southeastern ‘s meal plans. I was told that meals do not run over to the next week because cafeteria workers need to know how many people to prepare for. The school did not want to run the risk of under planning in case everyone used all of their meals at once. While I understand the logic behind this, it seems unlikely that such a scenario would occur. All students run on different schedules with different sets of events. If students were allowed to use meals that they missed during the week, no catastrophes would occur. It would, however, allow students to make better use of their meal plans.

With all of these restrictions, students can feel the need to get their money’s worth of food every time they enter the cafeteria. This can cause students to eat in unhealthy amounts, which then becomes a part of the famous “freshman 15.” I think that if students knew they could use their meals whenever and however they choose, this problem would at least partially be solved.

During further research, I discovered that Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge has a very flexible meal plan system in comparison to that of Southeastern or Nicholls. Students are allowed to share their meals with visiting family or friends, as well as eat in the cafeteria as however many times per day as they choose.  LSU sells meal plans with a set number of meals per semester, which means meals are not consistently wasted as they are in weekly meal plans.

Though hot meals are not always available throughout the day, students at LSU are at least able to enter the cafeteria at an unrestricted number of times a day and eat from the breakfast, salad or pizza bars. This makes perfect sense to me. The reason that LSU is able to be more flexible with their meal plans may be due to the fact that they are a larger school than Southeastern or Nicholls. However, I do not see why the smaller universities are unable to adopt the same arrangement. Having said all this about meal plans, I do not think that we have a terrible system.

I do, however, believe that it could be made better. I think it would be beneficial for students to be able to use their meals according to their individual needs, schedules and time preferences.