I think it speaks for itself

Wow, that must suck. I hope Chartwells used some lube.

The meal plan price is for the whole year, not just one semester

Beta Sig Steward Budget:

Breakfast: $0.50/head
Lunch: $1.50/head
Dinner: $1.75/head

+$35 for excellent cook divided amongst everyone.

It's amazing how much cheaper things are when you're not trying to rip everyone off.

BTW: We had pork steaks saturday, and are having Fried Chicken Sammiches today.

God bless living off campus. Meals cost... As much or as little as you want them to.

My daily food cost on the week days is less than $2. Preparation costs are $0.50 or less

We buy food for 4 at about $75/week. Thats about $2.70 each per day, or $0.90 per meal. Not too bad IMO.

The prices above are not an accurate comparison as they do not include the same expenses included in the meal plan rates.

losl, let me help shed some light on what's really happening with the meal plans.

James Murphy stated last year that plan costs are based on "meal days" or the number of days a cafeteria will need to prepare and serve food. I remember something about on the order of 234 meal days for either this or last year. For sake of argument, assume that 5 of every 7 meal days will be on a weekday with the remaining meal days being weekends. Furthermore, we assume weekdays will consist of 1 meal at a meal exchange rate of $2.70 and 2 meals at an exchange rate of $4.00, while weekend service will consist of 2 periods at an exchange rate of $4.00.

Since the plan you chose, 19 meals per week with $200 declining balance, offers $200 for use to the student, we assume he spends the complete total before the end of the academic year as this is a not uncommon and is the same assumption used when calculating the cost of the meal pans.

The total sales tax inside the city limits of Rolla is 7.6%; plus city ordinance mandates that all franchises operating within the city limits pay an additional 5%. We will assume the 5% is distributed evenly and as with sales tax is based only upon sale price. The university rounds all values to the nearest five dollars. For sake of argument, let us assume that the pre-tax value of the meal plan, as offered by the university is $2082 bringing the total cost after taxes to $2344.33 which is rounded up to $2345.


Not included in the calculation: 5% discount Chartwells gives to declining balance dollars and commuter points to sales made at Chartwells' own venues.

It is important to note that the meal plan fees also include facility maintenance for the dining facilities since the current contract does not require the vendor to own or maintain any equipment or utility bills incurred. This discrepancy in the calculation is likely more than the total value of missing costs in the assumptions such as reduced meal service days such as those offered during spring recess where there are only two meal periods per day. Also note that it is possible to utilize extended dinner hours to spend as much as $12 per weekday using only value exchange.

If we assume lost value is equal to the maintenance fee assessed in the meal plan, it can be seen that the meal plan price charged for this plan is about 82.5% of the plans maximum possible value. It is a fact that the average student only used about 80% of the maximum value for this plan. Statically, the fewer the number of meals per week, the higher the utilization of the meals per week, the smaller plans such as the 5 meals per week plans are usually utilized to about 95% of their maximum value.

There is the possibility to cause the current meal plan system to operate at a loss. You are not being over-charged by UMR for your meal plan.

Don't be pissed at the board rate charged by the University. Be pissed that a double cheeseburger is over $4.00 (after tax) when you can get two double cheeseburgers at Hardee's for $3.40 (after tax). That is why UMR is re-bidding the food service contract.

That's because Hardee's has to compete with McDonald's, Burger King, and at least a dozen other restaurants 363 days out of the year (the other two days being Thanksgiving and Christmas), and does not have a semi captive audience. Chartwell's has to compete, what, for a month once every 5 years?

If this logic puzzles people like Jim Murphy (which wouldn't surprise me in the least) maybe he should take one of the economics classes offered.

How do you propose to introduce competition into the campus dining system? The food contract invitation bid is yet to be drafted. If there is a way to bring competition to the board plan options that truly resides in the student's interest; now is the time to act.

What about the freedom not to sign the contract? If the system isn't working, people shouldn't have to support it because it is not the student's problem. When businesses have to deal with people that can make choices, things usually clean up pretty quickly.

Unfortunately with that, most incoming Freshman don't know anything about it. I can say when I was first coming here, the meal plans were not that high on my priority list. And most people in the dorms don't know of a lot of other options. There are only a few kitchens, most people don't have enough of their own supplies to cook meals, there is no collaboration.

Now, if everybody brought a bit, like a pan or an industrial-sized ingredient, you could probably set up a network of people cooking. The problem with this is that it requires a deal of organization, and you'll have 185 gallons of ketchup.


One thing I would note. I would not, in any way, charge people for meals, or for the use of equipment, etc. I imagine that Chartwells has some kind of exclusive deal atm with UMR, and you will get shut down right quick.

I was talking about the freedom not to sign the entire housing contract alltogether. When you have people living in dorms, a collaborative dining system is needed. If you feel like that system is not for you, then you would be free to choose your own mode of living such as eating at Wendy's 24/7, stealing your friend's food, or using your own kitchen. The dining service will not have guaranteed income and will be forced to do good business or fail. It is not the job of the common student to subsidize what might be an otherwise failing business practice.

It does make the transition a bit easier though. You realize that most people aren't used to having to cook for themselves [thats what moms are for ], or running their own house. Much less doing that, getting to class, doing all your hw/studying, bills, other chores, meeting new people, getting wasted, basically re-learning the way you have to live, etc.

I for one actuallly liked the dorms. Maybe I just got good roomies, but we did fine. Sure it was a bit small, but it didn't matter until you live somewhere with more room. We always seemed to make do. And besides, there was always something goin gon, which is not true here at my house now. That is one of the things I don't like, its just far enough away from campus where I don't really see most of my friends that often.

what are some options when living in dorms other than getting a smaller meal plan, or leaving the dorm? can we drop the plan entirely and still live in the dorms?