As students rush to complete final essays and exams by the end of the semester, they are also rushing to use their remaining meal swipes. With a fixed number every semester and no option for swipes to roll over, unused swipes expire without benefit.
“You don’t use them, you lose them,” Robyn Bruneau, who works at the entrance desk in North Dining Hall, said.
Senior Kristen Rizkalli, a resident assistant in McGlinn Hall, opted for the meal plan with the least amount of swipes and most flex points available to on-campus seniors. The plan features 180 swipes and $1,000 flex points.
A week after fall break, and over the halfway into the semester, she shared that to be on track to use all of her meal swipes by the end of the semester, she should have under 90 swipes left.
When asked how many meal swipes she had left, Rizkalli said, “Oh God, probably a lot … I have 125.”
Rizkalli is not confident that she will get through all of her meal swipes by the end of the semester.
“I never get anywhere close to finishing them,” Rizkalli said. “I normally had probably, like, over 100 swipes left over when we were forced to do the Block 250.”
The standard meal plan for students, known as Block 250, includes 250 meal swipes and $500 worth of flex points, which can be used at on-campus restaurants. All freshmen are required to be on this meal plan, but sophomores and juniors can reduce their meal plan to Block 230 in exchange for money refunded to their Irish Pay accounts. Only seniors like Rizkalli can further reduce their plans.
Rizkalli finds that using up meal swipes is difficult with her schedule.
“I won’t get out of class or lab until, like, after two o’clock a lot of the time, which is when I get to eat lunch,” Rizkalli said. “Normally, I know there’s not gonna be great options in the dining hall, because it’s just like the grill station and the sandwiches, so I don’t bother going.”
Students are also able to use meal swipes at Grab N Go, which was restructured at the start of the school year. Although this year has seen an increase in Grab N Go locations, Rizkalli noted it was easier to use swipes at Grab N Go last year given the different point system. Instead of requiring students to get an entree, a side and a drink, students could previously get any items, as long as they added up to seven points.
“I could get like seven bottles of water from the Grab N Go,” Rizkalli said.
Sophomore Raymon Duran noticed the same thing.
“Last year, I would grab a bunch of one-point snacks or something and take them back to the dorm, but I can’t really do that anymore because it’s a three-item process.”
By mid-November, Duran had 153 meal swipes — over half of his 230 left.
“I usually have about 90 to 100 left anyways,” Duran said.
Junior Santiago Ralston had even more meal swipes than Duran by the same date, having used only 184 of his 230.
When asked whether he will use his remaining swipes, Ralston said, “Oh, absolutely not. There’s not enough time, and I can’t go to the dining hall that many times a day. I only go for lunch and dinner.”
“I dug myself into this hole and used all my flex points way too fast,” Ralston said. “If I was a smart person, and only got Starbucks like once a week instead of like five times a week, which is what I was doing for the first couple weeks of this semester, I think the meal plan would have been worth it.”
Instead of using meal swipes, Ralston prefers to save time and order food from an on-campus restaurant.
“The food [at the dining hall] is not as good, and you’re in line for upward of 20 minutes for it,” he said.
Kate Kirwan, an off-campus senior with an 80-meal-swipe plan and $110 in flex points, had 30 swipes left as of Nov. 11. She noted she has used all of her swipes in years past and said this year will be no different.
“I’ll get between, like, zero to 10 left,” Kirwan said.
When asked if the meal plan is worth the price she pays, Kirwan said, “For the food, no, for the social aspect, yes.”
The price of a single meal swipe varies depending on the meal plan. Meal plans for students that live on campus are included in room and board, making it difficult to determine how much a single swipe costs.
For off-campus seniors, like Kirwan however, meal plans are directly purchased. Calculations for a single meal swipe for off-campus seniors based on meal plans offered by Campus Dining are as follows:
|
Plan |
Total cost |
Flex points |
Meals |
(Cost − flex) |
Cost per meal |
|
Select 230 |
$3,585 |
$0 |
230 |
$3,585 |
$15.59 |
|
Select 150 |
$2,875 |
$275 |
150 |
$2,600 |
$17.33 |
|
Select 120 |
$2,285 |
$150 |
120 |
$2,135 |
$17.79 |
|
Select 80 |
$1,590 |
$110 |
80 |
$1,480 |
$18.50 |
|
Select 50 |
$1,065 |
$110 |
50 |
$955 |
$19.10 |
|
Select 32 |
$740 |
$110 |
32 |
$630 |
$19.69 |
|
Select 25 |
$610 |
$110 |
25 |
$500 |
$20.00 |
The larger the plan, the cheaper each swipe becomes. Based on these calculations, the cost of a single swipe for Kirwan’s Select 80 plan is $18.50.
When informed of this cost, Kirwan said, “Geez! That’s literally a scam. It’s way more than I thought.”
While unused flex points from the fall semester can roll over into the spring, meal swipes cannot.
“I’m paying for them,” Rizkalli said. “So if my flex points could roll over, why can’t my swipes? I probably still wouldn’t get through all of them, but at least then it wouldn’t feel like I’m immediately just wasting all that money.”
Duran voiced additional confusion over not being able to transfer swipes to other students who have run out of swipes, as well as the guest swipe policy.
“I think the whole guest swipe thing is kind of a little strange,” Duran said, referring to Campus Dining’s policy that prevents students from using their own swipes for guests beyond the five guest swipes allotted to each student per semester.
“If I bring my friends, why can’t I just use my own swipes? Even people that are off campus or whatever, if the swipes are on my meal plan, why can’t I use them at my convenience?”
If Duran ends the semester with his usual 90 to 100 unused meal swipes, based on the $15.59 price per meal for off-campus seniors on the select 230 meal plan, $1,403 to $1,559 would go unused. This number is an estimate, because the actual price for on-campus student meal plans are “internal operational details,” according to Campus Dining.
When asked what happens to the leftover money that comes from students’ unused meal swipes, Campus Dining wrote in a statement to The Observer, “Revenue generated from meal plans directly supports Campus Dining operations and the student experience. These funds are invested into quality, variety, facility improvements, sustainability initiatives, student employment, and overall service that benefit the campus community.”
