My son will be attending Appalachian State University in the Fall of 2017 as a freshman. They have the following as options:
Meal Account Option
Price Per Semester
Low Option $1035 with state sales tax added
Standard Option $1330 with state sales tax added
High Option $1545 with state sales tax added
Super Option $1880 with state sales tax added
I’m a first time college parent and I need help in deciding. Can any experienced college parents please suggest a plan for him to start? By the way, their meal accounts operate on a declining balance system. Students are only charged for what they select and can use Meal Account funds anytime, anywhere for any on-campus food purchase. Meal Accounts cannot be used off campus and are non-refundable.
These descriptions are meaningless to me. How many meals per week do these different plans use? Or are they all a “points system”?
ETA…my DD’s meal plan was a points only plan. We got the standard plan…BUT we could also add points to her account at any time if she ran low. In her case, she was giving food away to hungry people at the end of every year because thenpoints did not roll over from year to year.
the website says you can add to a meal account if you run low on $$$. so i would just get the cheapest one and add to it if you need to. i guess that would be the Standard Option.
We paid a lot of extra money when we didn’t need to.
I wasn’t aware that at DD1’s school, the meal plan for breakfast had limited “breakfast” hours, so if she ran to the commons at 11:00, she wasn’t allowed to have a “breakfast” meal at that time. She had to have lunch.
She had late classes and would miss dinner.
We eventually added cash to her Cash card and she could get meals on campus, at the dorms, at Wegman’s and wherever she needed to be.
Son’s school doesn’t provide meals on the weekends. They get cereal boxes out and cold cuts; that’s it. He had to fend for himself.
DD2 was on a meal plan for the first year only because it was required. So she missed out on breakfast meals.
She lived off-campus for the next 4 years, and we put her on a budget.
I am not a parent but for me, I was on a budget so I would’ve easily picked the Low Option. However, it depends on your son. I know a lot of my dorm mates were huge dudes who went to the gym everyday so they consumed more. Other times, there’d be people who choose the low option and then use the extra cash to buy groceries and cook. Ultimately, it’s up to preference.
@aunt bea: Lucky girl!! We had our first (and only, sadly) Wegman’s experience while visiting colleges a year ago. Wow, what a place! I wish we had Wegman’s in our area.
My DS is a sophomore at Appalachian State. We have chosen the Super Option each semester and have had to add money each semester. I like many things about App State but not the meal plan options. It is truly a specialized debit card. Each item is charged separately. No meals or swipes as at many other colleges. We are a 6 hour drive away and so my son does not go home unless there is a break 4 days or longer. He does not have a car. Almost all meals are eaten on campus.
His Freshman year he bought a lot of microwave food in the Market and ate in is dorm room. He believed he saved money. We encouraged him to eat in the dining hall believing it to be healthier from both a nutrition and mental health perspective. I have not noticed that costs were dramatically higher.
The food is truly pricey. I have realized that when we have eaten in the dining hall for visits. Basic meals are $10-15 range in my experience. The quality and choices are good.
Your costs may be lower if you have a lighter eater (daughter), you live closer and your child will spend more weekends at home, and/or your child is a really good microwave/dorm cook. Any unused money from the fall meal plan rolls over to spring. So I would buy the high and plan to lower my choice for spring semester. Spring’s unused money does not roll over.
I also have 2 daughters graduating high school this year and have realized that even the super option at App is not that high compared to some schools’ plans they are considering so I am appreciating the options more.
Congratulations on Appalachian. The school has exceeded our expectations except for dining. The book rental plan is great!
There is a thread for Appalachian on the colleges and university pages. You might get better responses there. I think it really differs by school.
We learned a lot about meal plans at summer orientation. There were a couple parent sessions on it and it was a big topic at the parent informal meet and greet that evening. Several university admins were there that night and I think the one with responsibility for meal plans was surrounded all evening with parents asking questions. If you can hold off, you might want to wait until then to get a good idea of the options and how they work. If not, I’d consider the middle plan for a guy and see how it goes. Also try to get a sense of how good the food is at the school. If it’s not good, you’ll see kids go off campus a lot more. My son’s school is typically one of the top couple schools for food in the surveys lol and the kids eat on campus a lot more than some places. Also double check WHEN you have to decide by. My son can change it up until a week or so before classes start. YMMV obviously
No matter what plan you get, make sure your son thoroughly understands it AND checks regularly to see where he stands on it. Cannot tell you the number of kids who call home 2 months in and say they’ve run thru their plan already!
Is your son an athlete? Does he have food allergies? Does he eat three balanced meals a day right now, or is breakfast a granola bar, lunch a candy bar and a soda, and dinner is when he get protein, carbs, and salads?
I would suggest you buy the lowest cost meal plan. You can always give him money to buy more food, I’m sure they take cash at the cafeteria. We also discovered that if your student has enough credits to be considered a sophomore their 2nd semester there, you can drop to the lowest meal plan even though technically they are first year students.
My son will be attending Appalachian State University in the Fall of 2017 as a freshman. They have the following as options:
Meal Account Option
Price Per Semester
Low Option $1035 with state sales tax added
Standard Option $1330 with state sales tax added
High Option $1545 with state sales tax added
Super Option $1880 with state sales tax added
I’m a first time college parent and I need help in deciding. Can any experienced college parents please suggest a plan for him to start? By the way, their meal accounts operate on a declining balance system. Students are only charged for what they select and can use Meal Account funds anytime, anywhere for any on-campus food purchase. Meal Accounts cannot be used off campus and are non-refundable.
You really didn’t give us enough information to make a decision. What does each plan entail? How does your son eat? What hours does he keep? Have you discussed it with your son to see if he has a preference?
With the lack of that information I’d say to start with the smallest available plan and see how it goes. Also check online because many schools allow students to switch plans within the first week or two of college so you probably can upgrade the plan if necessary.
Is the meal plan required for his dorm? If you’re not sure what to get, could you just continue adding money to his account as needed, instead of purchasing a big meal plan upfront?
Based on my experience and that of my two kids (both out of college now):
Expect to pay the amount of the fullest meal plan.
But don’t actually pay it. Instead, suggest that your kid sign up for the smallest meal plan available to him and give him the difference in cash.
Colleges don’t plan their schedules of classes and activities around students’ need to get to dining halls for meals. Often, it is impossible for a student to get to the dining hall and eat the meal he has already paid for. (I remember one semester when I had classes at 11, 12, and 1 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. That meant three uneaten, expensive, prepaid lunches every week.)
Even if there is a gap in time between classes or other activities, it may not be long enough for the student to walk to the dining hall, buy food, eat the food, and walk to his next destination. So the student will end up paying cash for food at some campus snack bar instead (and campuses tend to be full of places where food can be bought for cash – those are the places where faculty, staff, and students who live off-campus get their food when they’re on campus).
This is not the way any of us would want things to be, but it’s reality.
This is a really neat thread. Here in the Northeast, I have only come across schools with a swipe system. It costs about $30 to enter the hall. So for the kid who wants to grab a bagel and juice - $30. Wants a quick cheeseburger? $30. The problem with these swipe systems is you just cant go grab a quick coke before class. You swipe, then a whole meal is deducted. SO what do kids do? they use cash at on campus to buy a coke.
To me it is a total racket. Many freshman are forced to buy the unlimited plan which I think probably works out well because then they can just grab whatever they want whenever they want and not worry about it. That option as one would expect is very expensive. These dining halls are a huge profit center for the schools. The have a forced captive audience that pays upfront for a non-refundable product.
In many ways the debit card option is best because then the student can monitor the spending like they will have to do in real life. That is a college lesson in and of itself.
I suspect most schools are by swipe and therefore most here will have experience only in swipes. Therefore, the decision making might be different but some of the same questions would still apply. Does your son eat a lot or a little? Does he eat breakfast? What is his class schedule like? Would he likely skip breakfast? (Either because he wakes up just in time to go straight to class, or because his first class is late in the day and so he just sleeps through breakfast).
Since it is by item, it may just be better to get the cheapest and add on. Unless, of course, adding on later is more expensive than buying in the first place. I think you will just have to make the best guess you can this semester and then after that your son will have a better idea what he needs in subsequent semesters.
