Would eating at dorm dining halls be cheaper??

Parent Cafe
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<li><p>Saving money. If done right by getting groceries/produce on sale and stocking up, one can actually save a bundle as my college classmates and I experienced when we started cooking for ourselves during summers/after college. </p></li>
<li><p>Student concerned loves to cook. While I’m neutral here, I knew many who enjoyed to channel their inner baker or chef…and I personally enjoyed their creations with gratitude. :D</p></li>
<li><p>Dining hall food options aren’t perceived to be tasty/healthy/compliant with religious dietary rules. (This was one reason many college classmates joined dining CO-OPs).</p></li>
<li><p>Preference for socializing with fellow classmates in venues other than the campus dining hall. (Another reason why students at my college joined dining CO-OPs or moved off-campus at other colleges).</p></li>
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<p>Desire for greater independence in determining living environment, sometimes lower cost*, and not being subjected to what some perceive to be infantilizing dorm regulations. </p>

<p>This was a common complaint among many college classmates as we were technically REQUIRED to dorm for all 4 years unless we had compelling health or other reasons. One older college alum said she was ready to live as a “real adult” in her own NYC apartment with roommates after her sophomore year and felt locked into a “bubble” for her last 2 years at our college due to dorm regulations/life. </p>

<p>In actuality, while juniors and seniors were able to get dispensations to live off campus, it wasn’t easy. Personally, I enjoyed my dorm experiences at my and to varying extents…other campuses as a visitor. </p>

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<li>YMMV as while it was cheaper to live off-campus at my rural midwest LAC, it is actually cheaper to dorm in expensive areas like some areas surrounding urban colleges in NYC and Boston when one considers the rental markets…and that’s before one considers living costs for groceries, utilities, etc.</li>
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<p>$8 per meal * 3 meals a day * 7 days a week comes out $168/wk on food. Unless you like to have caviar and foie gras with black truffles sprinkled on top for every meal, I think you can spend much less than half of that grocery shopping.
I go to school in Boston and my parents, who have lived in the Midwest for about 30 years, consider the grocery stores around me very expensive, with the exception of Trader Joe’s. I cook for breakfast and dinner usually, and buy lunch out more than half of school days. I can get groceries for between $30 and $60 a week, depending on what store I go to and what meals I have planned. For lunch out, I usually spend between $6 and $10 - though if I eat on campus it’s more like $4 - so if I get lunch 4 days out of 5, that’s a maximum of $40. All this means that I can manage food easily on $80/wk. If I didn’t eat out, I could get along with far less. In the summer, living in the far, far more expensive city of Paris, I’ve been able to do under 20€/wk.
If I had no kitchen or just plum sucked at cooking, I would probably be on a meal plan. I think the most full one available to students in my year and dorm costs about $120/wk. Most of my friends, unless they have extremely busy semesters, choose the cooking route. We are in a dorm a kitchen for every 5-6 people and we can cook more appealing and less expensive food than the dining hall offers, while saving our parents money. Even my friends who have chosen dining due to business often find it to be a less convenient option than they would have thought. In addition to the fact that, at least at my school, the food is very average, the dining halls are inconveniently located and, despite efforts on the part of the administration to fix the timing issues in the last few years, the times for meals often don’t fit students schedules. Since they end up buying from other places when the bland food gets too tiring, when the food won’t fit their schedules, and when they find it more convenient to have breakfast and snacks from grocery stores in their rooms, their parents end up spending even more money.
I hope your son’s school has a better dining program than mine does. In that case, especially since it seems access to kitchens is limited, it is likely worthwhile to go with the dining plan.</p>

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<p>If there are dining plans for only some meals a week, that might be a good compromise. My older son eats a bowl of Life cereal every day for breakfast. The cafeteria meal was wasted on him. But the other meals were worth the price.</p>

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<p>It depends upon the discipline of the student and the eating style of the student. I had athletes that really chowed down, so the all you can eat cafeteria meals were worh it. They did go off campus and tried to cook their meals but with mixed results, so YMMV. I think a commuter meal plan is a good compromise for kids trying to cook their own food for the first time. My one son did quite well, but a big reason was that there were two international students who HAD to cook all of their meals at the house did a lot of the cooking for a break in the grocery costs. I think for some kids, not having that cafeteria choice can mean a lack in things like salads, fresh fruits, veggies. Like I said, it can depend on the kid.</p>

<p>This was not college, but I did have a friend who bought the lunch plan for kid in school, and he would always choose the default P&J which was very pricey. For the same cost, you could get a nice almost worth it Hot meal of the day, but he got the P&J on white bread with cookie, and pitched the fruit and drank the juice or milk. Just making a dozen P&J sandwiches, freezing them and packing a lunch with a cookie and a thermos or bottle of juice or milk (half frozen and the refilled with the liquid form is perfect) cost less than a quarter of the meal plan there. Mathmom would be paying the cafeteria entry cost for a bowl of Life cereal for her kid. But, mine really got their money’s worth because they eat…A LOT. So it can depend.</p>

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<p>If OP’s son is off-campus, I would suggest a commuter meal plan if available. We usually get our S1 a block of $50 meals + $50 “flex” credit. That way I know he can eat when he has to and he can cook the remaining meals at this apartment.</p>

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<p>Most of the colleges we researched had a requirement for dorm students to be on a meal plan. MIT was the exception.</p>

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<p>Like with all things, the benefits and drawbacks vary with different students. For some, getting that exposure to having to shop, plan, cook meals was good so they were not plunged into this mode upon leaving college and having a job with a pay that required watching the dollars, and cooking wisely at home… For some, it was nice to have the bit of extra time not having to worry about something that was going to be an issue for the rest of their lives. So, I think a bit of both really makes the most sense. One can then balance things as needed, maybe a few more meals on campus if that makes more sense, or the other way around if that’s better. </p>

<p>A problem that too often occurs, is that kds end up buying food, but just not preparing it wisely and still buying meals out, at the cafeteria or outside eateries and the whole thing ends up costing a lot more than budgeted. At one son’s schools there were a lot of upper classmen begging food and meals from those with the means because they ran out of the food money their parents gave them long before the semester was over.</p>

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<p>While I wasn’t an athlete as the only exercise I did consistently was to walk for 2-3 miles every other day, I did compensate for that factor. </p>

<p>When it came to each of my meals, I made it a point to stuff my backpack with as much fruit* as it would hold and stockpile it in my dormroom for snacking between meals and late nights. </p>

<p>I’d also sometimes pack some bread and soft drinks through the secret use of thermos/washed out 2 liter soda bottles. :D</p>

<p>That and sneaking in some known homeless or otherwise indigent folks.** </p>

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<li>Apples, oranges, pears, etc. Recalled a cousin who managed a buffet 4-star hotel restaurant that the most expensive items tended to be meat and fruit. Veggies and grains were cheap filler items.<br></li>
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<p>** This was a commonplace thing among many students at my LAC when I attended.</p>

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<p>Eat for $8. I can never seem to go to the grocery store and get meals for less than $8 a meal especially if you want to eat healthy. Sure you can make a hamburger helper meal for less or macaroni and cheese but who wants to eat that. I would go to the grocery store and buy food for breakfast and lunch, then spend the $8 and eat up for dinner.</p>

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<p>I am thinking about the logistics of this whole thing…where is a student living in a dorm going to store all the healthy and low cost food s/he is going to prepare to avoid a meal plan? In the shared dorm-room mini-fridge? or, by taking over the fridge in the floor kitchen? Also, not all campuses have a full service grocery store in easy distance from the dorms–will the student be able to easily carry a week or so’s worth of groceries, or need to go shopping more often, or need some mode of transportation to get to the grocery store?</p>

<p>My sons generally stocked their rooms with things like cereal and healthy snacks. They usually took a meal plan for 10-14 meals/week, and when in the dining hall would often grab and extra piece of fruit or two, or make a healthy sandwich for later,etc.</p>

<p>Eating together is one of the main ways students make friends and socialize and is so central to the “college experience”–where students get in to those great discussions and stretch their minds (not all discussions need to be intellectual! but it’s where students learn about people, from different backgrounds or situations, holding different ideas, different ways of relating etc)</p>

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<p>At my DD’s school all freshman were required to have a meal plan. My DD lived in an on-campus apt last year and will live in the same one for her junior year. We did not get her a meal plan but put a certain amount of $ in her acct. When she was really busy and did not have time to cook she would buy a meal at the cafeteria or food court on campus. The rest of the money she would use for groceries. It worked out really well for her and she spent less than a meal plan. She is not a breakfast eater anyway - doesn’t like any of the typical breakfast food except cereal bars or cereal so having a full meal plan and never eating breakfast was a waste for her.</p>

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<p>Lake Jr. enrolls next week at a school which mandates that on-campus underclassmen and underclasswomen purchase a meal plan. Lake Jr. purchased a meal plan, but also intends to use the residence hall kitchen from time to time, which I’ve encouraged because he won’t have the opportunity to go to the dinning hall for breakfast the 4 days a week that he has to be in class by 8am. A quick-to-prepare breakfast of eggs, toast, fruit or cereal will complement the lunch and dinner in the dinning hall. In my opinion, a student paying 8 bucks for a bagel and juice or a couple of donuts for breakfast in the dinning hall makes no sense.</p>

<p>Nevertheless, I believe that first year students should eat in the dinning hall. It’s an activity that can be utilized to get to know your new schoolmates better. But that doesn’t mean that every meal has to be eaten in the dinning hall. If the minimalist mandated option is feasible, then I would recommend that for a student who doesn’t mind cooking all his/her other meals. God forbid, however, that they find themselves frequently cooking nothing but ramen and other ghastly packaged food.</p>

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<p>I think it’s one thing to take a few pieces of fruit or a cup of yogurt, or make a PBJ sandwich for later on, or maybe fill a thermos with a soft drink for the road, but to load up like that – with a bursting backpack and a 2-liter bottle – doesn’t seem appropriate or very nice. If you’re THAT hungry after hours, it should be on you to buy your own food supplies for your dorm room.</p>

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<p>And when I was on the meal plan back in the age of dinosaurs, taking literally ANYTHING from the dinning hall was a university violation and a big no no. We had a white-haired senior citizen who sat by the exit at dinner, carefully scanning the assorted dinning tables in the hall. Miraculously, she would uncover nearly every culprit who stashed food and drink in their backpacks and bookbags. The penalty for sneaking food was possible forfeiture of dinning hall privileges.</p>

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<p>I cook a lot, and have for many years, and can beat any meal plan I’ve seen. I can get the food budget down to rock bottom and still come up with nutritious balanced meals. But it does require planning and savvy and discipline. That’s been a big focus in my life, and I don’t know too many US college kids who can do that. I have a friend who rents only to international grad students that go to a certain major university, and they all cook nearly all of their meals. My son lived with two international students, who were on very, very lean budgets, and they rarely if ever ate out, and not if they had to pay for it. They were on very tight budgets, and tried to spend as little as they could.</p>

<p>So, yes, one can eat for a lot less, if one focuses on this and is resourceful, but it does require attention. You can spend as much or more in preparing meals if you are not careful, and it does take some time to build up a larder. I can come up with some great meals on little because I already have a lot of the spices and other extras to prepare things. It’s a whole other story when you have to start from scratch, not to mention all of the pots and pans, and things that one needs to stock a kitchen. </p>

<p>I work at a food pantry and soup kitchen and they always have whole wheat bread they cannot give away, so I take that. My family prefers white bread too, but too bad. So that with a jar of Peanut butter, a pound of ham on sale at Shoprite, this weekend, cut rate produce bin iceberg lettuce and a dollar shop jar of jam would do a week of sandwiches for my family for eight bucks. Take some of that lettuce and an onion sauteed and some cheap ramen from Walmart that I parboil and then saute, some thin strips of ham, and you got a lo mein dish for practically nothing. I buy huge bags of rice and any left over goes into a freezer to accumulate enough for fried rice. So, yes, I can make cheap meals. I make the lomein for the soup kitchen a few times a year and it’s a favorite for those who go there. Also a noodly ramen soup with some leftovers done just right can hit the spot and be quite tasty. So it can be donr–eating on little money, but you have to know what you are doing and keep a focus on it.</p>

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<p>One could say the same thing about colleges mandating maximum 21 meals/week for first semester/year freshmen…especially considering how much they charge per meal in board charges. </p>

<p>As with colleges maximizing one of their most profitable centers…students like myself were doing the same in making the most of our mandated meal plan. Even with the fact I am taking much fruit doesn’t mean I’m breaking their bank. In fact, the only issue in my case is that their profit margin per meal is reduced a bit. However, it’s more than compensated by students who don’t eat all meals on the plan, don’t eat very much/eat cheaper stuff(i.e. cereal, PBJ, cereal bars, etc), or those who end up paying more per meal by going to reduced meal plans. </p>

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<p>This varies by college in practice. While it was theoretically frowned upon, in practice…it’s tolerated unless it’s really blatant. </p>

<p>Then again, the dining staffers didn’t make a big fuss about us students sneaking in indigent or homeless folks so long as we were discreet about it. </p>

<p>Incidentally, at another university I happened to be visiting, there was a dining hall staffer who tried to stop a friend who was saving part of a sandwich for a later snack. Upon being stopped and told he couldn’t take it with him, he argued “Hey, we’ve paid a heavy premium* for this, what’s the big deal?!!” </p>

<p>After a few minutes, they allowed him off and he happily took his half-eaten sandwich to be eaten at his leisure. </p>

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<li>Broken down by meal, his dining plan came out to around $8/meal…and this was back in the mid-'90s.</li>
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<p>IME, it wasn’t difficult to make tasty nutritious balanced meals cooking for oneself on less than what college dining halls charged. Heck, back in the late '90s/early '00s, one can come out ahead on that score by eating in some small nice sit-down eateries…especially ethnic ones such as Italian eateries in the North End or Chinese eateries in Boston/NY Chinatowns.</p>

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<p>Oberlin allows students living in dorms to eat at food co-ops, which are often cheaper than the dining hall. I believe that Stanford does, too.</p>

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<p>Cheaper isn’t always necessarily the case if you factor in the following:</p>

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<li><p>Co-ops are only as good as their student-based management. The fact Co-ops have run out of food due to miscalculations or unexpectedly heavy demand undermines the “cheaper” argument. While one can eat at other Co-ops, it’s not a good idea to make it a habit…especially since they may also have similar issues…especially towards the end of the semester. It’s not good to come to a Co-op expecting a meal only to find there’s little left…or sometimes nothing as happened to some classmates. </p></li>
<li><p>There’s a requirement to contribute some hours per week towards chores such as cooking, cleaning, management of budget, or anything else. Not only does this tend to be onerous for students who have maxed out courseloads and work part-time, the assignment of chores can become heavily political from what I’ve seen/heard from friends who were Co-op members. Most FA/scholarship students like myself avoided the Co-ops for this reason. </p></li>
<li><p>Some Co-ops were associated with dorms known for attracting students with serious issues with personal hygiene. One dorm in particular popular with a subset of neo-hippies with that issue was notorious for this when I attended. On hot days, the stench could be detected a long ways off. Many students who don’t share their philosophy regarding personal hygiene made it a point to detour around the area where it was located on hot days to avoid the stench. It’s one thing to share a classroom with some…it’s another thing to get one’s meals from their kitchens/eating area/dorm building. </p></li>
<li><p>The Co-op dining area may not always be enough to accommodate all members at the same time. This has been an issue with a few Co-ops.</p></li>
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<p>As promised, there were vegetarian options at every meal on my vegetarian D1’s mandatory freshman-year meal plan, but she found they were quite limited, and on the whole unimaginative and in many cases not particularly tasty–and sometimes not even nutritionally balanced, as when pasta with marinara sauce was the vegetarian entree, a depressingly frequent occurrence. She also resented being charged $9/meal when it was obvious to her that the actual cost of the vegetarian options available to her was a small fraction of that, while at the next table the “lax bros” were wolfing down serving after serving of expensive meat, available to them in unlimited quantities for the same $9/meal. Since freshman year, she’s been off the meal plan and preparing her own meals (or sharing with friends) in her on-campus apartment with full kitchen, spending far less than she would on the meal plan, eating a wider variety of foods more creatively prepared (by her), and finding her own cooking much tastier, more nutritionally balanced, and more satisfying (naturally, because it’s tailored by her to her own taste). </p>

<p>The trade-off is the time it takes to shop and cook. Fortunately both Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are easily accessible, and there’s a Saturday farmer’s market the next town over, all within easy biking distance. She usually does TJ and WF late Friday afternoon after her last class, and the farmer’s market Saturday morning. She plans out a whole week’s meals on the fly while shopping, based mostly on what produce looks the best and most appealing, and usually cooks at least one big meal over the weekend which will keep her in leftovers for several meals during the coming week. Or she’ll make enough to freeze some for later in individual meal-sized containers. She enjoys cooking and finds it a relaxing break from school to come home and cook her own dinner or to cook with friends, and she’s become an excellent vegetarian cook. She does occasionally treat herself to a dinner out, a light lunch at a campus cafe, or even the occasional a la carte meal at the campus dining hall when there’s something especially appealing on the menu (i.e., not often), but even with all that, her food costs come in well below the cost of a full meal plan.</p>

<p>Totally works for her. I suspect many college students wouldn’t have the patience or self-discipline to shop and cook so regularly (or to work that time into their schedule and stick to it), or the culinary skills to plan and execute that many meals. Many wouldn’t take the kind of pleasure D1 takes in shopping for fresh produce (she’s already anticipating what will be available at the farmer’s market in September) and cooking creative meals. I know for a fact that a lot of the students in the college apartments who are not on the meal plan do little or no cooking and pick up a large percentage of their meals at WaWa, a local convenience store. They do have decent hoagies, but a hoagitarian diet has its limitations. </p>

<p>So yes, it can be cheaper to be off the meal plan, but it takes a certain amount of time, effort, self-discipline, and skill to pull it off well.</p>

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<p>Do we know yet whether the OPs kiddo is living in a dorm room or an apartment…on or off campus? I don’t believe that question has been answered despite being asked several times.</p>