Dartmouth Dining: Dissecting the Numbers
Dartmouth Dining Services (DDS) is Dartmouth’s primary food service for students living on campus. A favorite topic of commiseration and complaint amongst students, it is not uncommon to hear students bemoan the food at FoCo (The Class of 53 Commons Dining Hall) or to hear an incredulous student comment, “They are charging six dollars for sliced pineapple? Unbelievable!” While these complaints have been addressed in other publications at greater detail, one additional shortcoming of Dartmouth Dining has gone largely overlooked: consistently overpaying workers.
As the above graphic indicates, a DDS non-student counter worker — preps and serves food — makes an initial wage of $15.20/hour. Comparing DDS wages to the average wage of $11.00/hour for entry-level service sector wages in Hanover indicates that Dartmouth tends to pay more for unskilled labor than the typical Hanover restaurant.
Of course, higher than typical wages are not inherently wasteful — higher wages could be leveraged to encourage greater productivity or attract reliable workers. However, from an anecdotal perspective, the quality of work done by a DDS employee is not noticeably different from that of a Boloco Line Cook or a Molly’s waiter. Furthermore, Dartmouth’s employees, including DDS full-time workers, gain access to a comprehensive benefit and retirement program which includes dental and health insurance and a matching 401k retirement plan. Taken all together, one can without doubt conclude that Dartmouth Dining pays a surprising amount for its workers.
Someone must eventually finance these higher wages, and it appears that DDS passes on the cost of these wage premiums to Dartmouth students. From the 2018–19 school year to the 2019–20 school year, the cost of meal plans rose by around 50–100 dollars, representing a year-over-year price increase of 3.5–5.4 %, depending on the meal plan.
Additionally, the number of meal plan options have decreased — incentivizing students to select DDS’s flagship Ivy Standard Unlimited plan which encourages students to eat at Fifty Three Commons where food is mass produced, reducing preparation costs.
Finally, the cost of entrance into Fifty-Three Commons without a meal swipe has also increased. For example, paying to enter Fifty-Three Commons during dinner time increased from $14.75 to $15.75 this term, as has the price of various items at Collis and the Hop. Comparing the higher prices of food and higher wages for DDS staff indicate a lack of frugality from DDS leadership and a general attitude of indifference towards the pocketbooks of Dartmouth students and families.
One hopes that this indifference — with sufficient outside encouragement — will soon change.
