Is There a Tradeoff Between College Food Quality and Student Diversity?
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Food Fight, compares Vassar and Bowdoin’s food quality to their percentage of students on Pell Grants. Vassar reportedly has terrible food while Bowdoin is said to practically have Michelin star quality food. After all, Bowdoin’s dining services will cater a Lobster Bake. According to Gladwell, since Vassar spends less on their food quality, they are able to spend more on financial aid, increasing campus diversity. Therefore, about 22 percent of Vassar’s student body receives Pell Grants, while only about 14 percent of Bowdoin’s student body are Pell Grant recipients.
Does this comparison hold true at other liberal arts colleges? Using Pell Grant data from The Education Trust and 2017 Best College Food Ranking from Niche.com I looked to see if schools with a worse ranking (higher score) on the “Best College Food Ranking” had a higher percentage of students on Pell Grants.
The results from this analysis do not entirely align with Gladwell’s claim that schools with better food have a lower percentage of students on Pell Grants.
The Niche ranking looked at 1,384 four-year colleges. The worse ranked school I used in my comparison was Bard College, which has a ranking of 1,359. Only 19 percent of Bard’s student body is on Pell Grants, and out of all the schools I examined, this was not the highest percentage. Amherst (20 percent Pell) and Vassar (22 percent Pell) both placed higher for their percentage of students on Pell Grants even though they also have better food. Amherst ranked 1,151 for food and Vassar ranked 907. Williams College also has the same percentage of students on Pell Grants as Bard College, but they also have significantly better food. (They have a food ranking of 228.).
One possible reason for my analysis not confirming Gladwell’s claim could be due to my use of a different food quality measure than used by Gladwell. He doesn’t in fact discuss in his podcast how he measured the food at Vassar and Bowdoin. Data limitations might also have affected the analysis since I used 2013 Pell Grant Data (this was the most recent data for Pell Grant percentages by school that I could find) but 2017 “Best College Food Ranking” data.