At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, students can order hand-rolled sushi in the cafeteria or wings and pizza delivered until 1am. Photos of salmon fillets laid atop asparagus sticks and spoonfuls of lemony quinoa adorn the school’s dining guide.
For all its efforts, the university was recently ranked at the top of the Princeton Review’s “best campus food” list.
The university is just one example of how schools nationwide have sought to upgrade dining halls from three-meals-a-day cafeterias to multi-restaurant lifestyle purveyors. The school boasts a permaculture initiative, a gluten-free station, and describes dining as “sustainable, healthy options with the flare of global cuisine”.
“We want to change how America eats,” said Ken Toong, executive director of Auxiliary Enterprises, a group of self-sustaining ventures inside the university that includes campus dining. “We want to make the world a better place for students and serve wide food menu they want to eat.”
The “best campus food” list is based on a rather flimsy metric that asks students one question: how good is your school’s food, on a scale of one to five? Comments are also accepted.
“UMass dining is top notch. The food here is restaurant quality!” one student told Princeton Review.
“I LOVE the food here. The sustainable efforts are amazing and they always have new things going on plus guest chefs. They are always updating the dining facilities. I would rather eat here then at home!” said another. “Even living off campus I splurge for a meal plan.”
However, food like that at UMass Amherst comes at a price.
Students in their first two years of school are required to purchase a meal plan, as are any living in dorm-style housing. Plans range from $2,619 a semester (roughly four months) for a limited number of “swipes” to $3,081 a semester. More expensive plans come come with perks such as 15 guest meals and $500 in “dining dollars”.
Over a similar period of months, the US Department of Agriculture estimates even the most exorbitant grocery budget of a single man older than 18 at $1,772, still 39% cheaper than eating at UMass Amherst for a semester. The USDA’s most frugal estimates (the “thrifty” plan) are less expensive still, just $887 for four months for a single man, or 28% of the most generous campus dining plan.
For further comparison, a student on food stamps would receive roughly $784 in benefits over the same period of time.
All that is factored into UMass Amherst’s total out-of-state cost of $44,407 per year, the price for about 6,100 of the school’s roughly 22,000 undergraduate students. Kids from Massachusetts pay $28,074 per year. The average student debt load upon graduation is $30,453.
Toong, however, points to the high quality and sustainability of campus dining as justification for high prices.
“Most of our produce comes locally, and they’re even buying meat now from New England,” Toong said. UMass Amherst serves “only sustainable seafood, and also serving fair trade coffee only, and then we also have free trade chicken”.
“Even the beef we use – we want to serve as much grass-fed beef as possible,” he said.
For Clare Cady of the College and University Food Bank Alliance (there is not a location at UMass Amherst), high-cost meal plans may spell problems for low-income students.
“There are students out there that have dining plans that are food insecure,” said Cady. “That is because a lot of schools, they require students to have a food plan if they live on campus, but they will offer these very low price points” with smaller quantities of meals, she said.
“It is possible that it is a barrier to access for low-income students.”
Not all food plans are as expensive as Amherst’s. At the University of Vermont, another New England university, unlimited meal plans are $2,204 a semester, $877 less expensive than Amherst’s most generous plan. Similarly, at New York University’s Washington Square campus, an “all access” plan is $2,800.
Additionally, Toong argues that students demand high-quality food. In a recent campus survey, 70% said they felt campus dining was important to their decision to attend the school.
And, at least in Massachusetts, the trend toward high-end cuisine does not appear to be abating. In 2015, the UMass campus at Lowell planned borrowed $100m for a dining hall renovation.
