Meal plans for all students living in campus residence halls could become mandatory in fall 2006, according to a first-draft report released earlier this week by ASU officials.
The proposed requirement could go for a vote before the Arizona Board of Regents as soon as January, said Sally Ramage, ASU associate vice president for student affairs. The meal plans cannot be implemented without the board's approval.
If approved, the plan would coincide with the start of required on-campus housing for freshmen, and the opening of the first phase of the McAllister Academic Village residence hall complex on the south side of campus. All ASU students living in residence halls would be subject to the meal plan requirement, regardless of their class standing.
Ramage said that mandatory meal plans are necessary to raise graduation and freshman retention rates, as well as provide a higher revenue stream to pay for improvements to ASU's campus dining programs.
"The reason [a meal plan is] required is that it's part of the room and board rate," Ramage said. "We have to guarantee the number of people that are going to be using a given dining facility, to provide that access full range. We have to guarantee a source of revenue in order to accomplish that."
Ramage said some of the money from the increased usage of campus dining created by the mandatory meal plans would go toward funding the construction of a Learning Resource Center tutoring and dining facility in McAllister Academic Village, as well as renovation of all dining facilities on campus. The Manzanita and Palo Verde eating facilities would get high priority for renovations, Ramage said.
The improvements could include 24-hour dining and the expansion of all-you-can-eat facilities on campus, but ASU officials still have to study and seek student input about the specific ways in which campus facilities would need to be enhanced, Ramage said.
The current draft plan is designed as a tiered system that gives students a choice of five different pricing options ranging from $2,200 to $3,500 per academic year. The $2,200 option would give students seven meals per week, while other, pricier plans give students unlimited campus dining either seven or five days per week. A sum of Flex Dollars, which could range from roughly $200 to $350, would be figured into the plan to give students the option of buying food and other items beyond the meals provided by their plans.
The draft proposal states that ASU's "room and board" rate, the sum of residence hall and meal plan costs, could range from $6,046 - $8,792 for the 2006-2007 academic year.
Ramage said mandatory meal plans are a common feature at many universities, and ASU officials hope to visit two universities with similar requirements beginning in early February to see how other schools are designing their plans. One of those schools likely will be University of Utah, Ramage said.
For purposes of comparison, the draft proposal states that, in the current 2004-2005 academic year, combined room and board at BYU, University of Minnesota, ASU and UA would fall into the $3,000 to $6,000 range. Currently, neither UA nor ASU require meal plans.
University of Colorado, University of Washington, San Diego State University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Oregon and California State University-Long Beach charge $6,000 to $9,000, according to the report. UCLA and University of California-Berkeley charge between $9,000 and $12,000 for similar combined room and board.
Ramage said the draft proposal was created as a result of a fall 2003 study by Porter Consultants that said ASU officials needed to increase hours of operation at eating facilities, provide better food, create gathering spaces where students can study while eating and combine meal plans with residence hall fees.
The plans in the report are still in a draft stage, and are still being discussed and fine-tuned, Ramage said, adding that a student forum was held in September and that she hoped more forums would likely be held during the spring semester, even in the case that the plan already is approved in January.
Undergraduate Student Government President Sophie O'Keefe-Zelman said the draft proposal raises questions including whether low-income students can opt out of the plan.
"This thing is going to need a lot more attention," O'Keefe-Zelman said.
Ramage said the plans would address the needs of low-income students, but she didn't yet know how that would work.
Financial aid and work-study aid programs could help students pay for the meal plans, Ramage said.
O'Keefe-Zelman also said she gives praise to many aspects of the draft proposal, like its different pricing options.
Student input will be necessary, O'Keefe-Zelman said, adding that she hopes a vote on the plan will occur later in the semester. Bringing the plan before the regents in January could make the process of getting input from students more difficult because the plan could be approved before a new student forum is held, O'Keefe-Zelman said.
"The [regents'] meeting is being held during the second week of school," O'Keefe-Zelman said. "How on earth are you going to be able to dialogue with students about this?"
Reach the editor at nicole.saidi@asu.edu.
