My son is a freshman at UR and is fine with just a 150 swipe plan. He has yet to spend any of his declining dollars. He doesn’t drink coffee or tea so Starbucks is out of the question. I hate the fact that we are forced to pay for something we don’t use. If they could be converted to UROs we’d have more options. Has anyone ever contested the mandatory dining plans? I wrote to dining services but I’m not expecting a positive response.
When I went to college I never liked the way they do the dining plans and how expensive packaging the “cash” options gets in relation to the swipes. I would say most colleges is a complete take it or leave it policy that they negotiate with the vendor providing the dining services to guarantee a minimum revenue for the company… They have very little incentive at any college to stray from that agreement unless students or parents get vocal with complaints. So while it might not do anything right away, if your unhappy I would definitely voice your concerns with them about it.
he could buy hot chocolate and pastries, keep the pastries for late night study?
When D was a freshman, before coming home in May she hit the campus variety store and bought drinks, chips, etc, until she had exhausted her declining. Agree, what a waste.
There are a number of off campus locations where you son can use his declining dollars-- Dinosaur BBQ, Chipotle, Subway, The Distillery, Pontillos Pizza (he can use his declining to have pizza delivered to his dorm room), CVS, Strong Vision Optical…
Full list of off campus location accepting declining dolars here: http://www.rochester.edu/dining/locations/off-campus-locations/
I remember going out for lunch at The Distillery with D2 on Meliora weekend her freshman year and she paid for both our meals with declining.
He can also use declining to buy food at the Strong Hospital Cafeteria. (D2 often used to eat her lunch/dinner at the hospital caf because her research lab was located in the hospital and it quicker & easier to eat there than walk back across campus.)
If he really has excess declining left–have him walk over to CVS and buy school supplies or sports drinks to keep in his room. (D2 tried to use her declining to buy alcoholic beverages at CVS during senior week before graduation–she was 21 so she was of legal age, but booze is the one thing you can’t use declining to buy at CVS.)
@WayOutWestMom you can only use URos at these locations, not declining balance. A URos balance is like a debit account that can only be used at certain locations and it’s not required for students to have any sort of balance. I never understood the point of URos. The only reason I can think of using URos instead of actual money (debit card, cash) is if parents want to give their kids spending money for food and whatnot but don’t trust them to not spend it elsewhere.
Declining balance can only be used at places like dining halls, on-campus coffee shops & on-campus groceries.
Now that I think about it, I used to use URos for printing in the on-campus libraries and maybe for laundry.
Declining can be used at Strong Hospital cafeteria and vedning areas also.
D2 used URos for printing and laundry.