Freshmen living in Polytechnic's Dean, Freshmen Year Experience and Bell residence halls will be paying at least $650 in fall 2006 for their mandatory meal plans. This is a $50 increase from the current $600 fee.
Upperclassmen living in the Eagle, Phantom, Falcon, Mustang and Talon residence halls are not required to purchase a meal plan.
Polytechnic freshmen living on campus have always been required to purchase a meal plan.
Gary McGrath, dean of student affairs at the Polytechnic campus, said he thinks the overall implementation of the meal plan involved both financial and educational issues.
"We had feedback from parents wanting to know what meal plans were available. We didn't have facilities that were very good for cooking there," he said. "We also thought there was real value in getting people out. There is a socializing aspect to having a meal plan. So all those factors kind of played into it. We were told that because of our small size, no food service provider wanted to take a risk on us."
Chris Collins, campus dining director for Polytechnic's food provider, Chartwells, said the price increase was due to Chartwells and ASU losing money and not meeting selling goals.
Naomi Spears, a pre-veterinarian freshman on a meal plan, said she strongly disagrees with the price increase.
"I am against the fact that Chartwells has had the impudence to increase the amount of the meal plan for the incoming freshmen for fall of 2006," she said. "Students last school year strived through tough obstacles to decrease the amount of the meal plan from $900 to $600, and now they are trying to resurrect what was done away with by increasing it to $650."
Allison Schneider, an applied bio-sciences freshman, said she also thought the meal-plan increase was ridiculous.
"I'm not even here enough to use all of my money," she said.
Deanna Lara, president of the Polytechnic student body, said she was pleased to hear that the administration was listening to student government suggestions and implementing a reasonable increase, while refraining from adding mandatory meal plans for upperclassmen.
The meal-plan dollars can only be used at Chartwells. Collins said he was hoping to make boxes of beverages, such as Powerade, available for purchase at the end of the school year to address concern of leftover meal-plan dollars.
He added that catering an end-of-the-school-year event through Chartwells was another option to spend the meal-plan money.
Greg Lyon, a professional flight freshman, said buying drinks in bulk may be a good idea for some, but a horrible idea for others.
"Some people drink a lot of soda or sports drinks, so they might like the idea, but others don't drink so much, or they might not have a place to put it all," he said. "So, in the end, their money that could have been put to use somewhere else is still wasted."
"The idea of having a catered party is even more absurd, because no student is going to want to throw a party with food they generally dislike," he added.
Reach the reporter at cem.burnham@asu.edu.
