MSU Culinary Services will restructure off-campus dining plans and raise prices for the 2013-14 academic year, starting Aug. 17. Increasing wholesale food prices, utility costs and other business expenses drove the price increases, Jenna Brown, communications manager for MSU Culinary Services, said in an email.
All three on-campus dining plans will remain the same, from number of meals to amount of Sparty cash, but will rise in price by 3.9 percent. The price rise is in accordance with the MSU Board of Trustees decision to raise room and board rates by 3.9 percent for the 2013-14 academic year.
Off-campus dining plans, those offering a set number of cafeteria visits for a bulk price, will change. Previously the highest bulk quantity was 100 meals at $7.50 per meal, but now students can purchase 175 meals at a time for $6.75 per meal. There also are four new bulk quantities available: 25, 50, 125 and 175, with the 100-meal plan remaining from the 2012-13 academic year and rising in price by 10 percent.
For students without any meal plan, the price of cafeteria admission will rise by $0.50 for lunch, dinner and late-night and by $0.24 for breakfast.
Other changes include Combo-X-Change being usable at the Food for Thought food truck and the Union Food Court becoming all-you-can-eat from 8 p.m. to midnight, every night, to accommodate students in North Neighborhood while Landon Dining Hall is closed for renovations.
Off-campus student and international relations senior Jared Merlo said he visits the cafeterias once a day, using and renewing the 10- and 20-meal bulk plans. Merlo said the cafeterias are expensive on paper, but offer much more.
“(Today) I sat down in the cafe at 12 p.m. and left at 2 p.m.,” he said. “I get there, sit down and study with all the conveniences: coffee, pop, things to snack on. It’s hard to say the cafe situation (is) a bad deal.”
Unlike the cafeterias, study sessions at coffee shops offer less, but charge for every item, coffee refills included, Merlo said. If his meal plan situation differed, so might his mentality, he said.
“If I was forced to have a meal plan, maybe it would be a different thing for me,” Merlo said. “When you have one option and someone raises the price on that option, you feel abused.”
Criminal justice junior Phillip Williams is moving from the dorms to off-campus housing this fall and is considering purchasing a bulk meal plan.
“It’s very convenient to have the food there,” Williams said. “It’s premade, and there are plenty of choices.”
Williams said the off-campus plans have always interested him compared to the unlimited meal plans forced on dorm residents.
“People shouldn’t have to pay for what they don’t want, won’t eat,” he said. “I always wanted the set number of meals so you get charged (only) when you eat. I’ll miss the fresh food and atmosphere of the cafeteria … Can’t complain about the workers. Can’t complain about the food, just the price.”
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