To Eat, or Not To Eat?
By Savion Smith
The familiar joke about college students sustaining themselves on a diet of instant microwave ramen and Pop-Tarts is more entertaining before it becomes a reality.
Students at Rutgers University have tough decisions to make when it comes to deciding how they will feed themselves while receiving education. U.S. News reports that estimates of food insecurity among college students have ranged from 9 percent to over 50 percent, and researchers admit current studies have limitations that prevent conclusive data on the food insecurity rates of the college student population.. Rutgers has options for buffet-style meal plans available to students, but this alternative is expensive and wreathed in restrictions. Rutgers is aware of the problems food insecure students face, and as a result started the Rutgers Food Pantry in autumn of 2016. Despite the existence of the pantry, it is not uncommon for Rutgers students to choose to eat out despite lacking funds, or to opt for a meal option that is nutrient deficient before even considering visiting the food pantry. Is this a case of class stigma among students strong enough to contribute to undernourishment on college campuses?
All Rutgers students who lodge in residential dorms are required to have a meal plan of 120 meal swipes at a bare minimum, and first-year residents are required to subscribe to a 210 minimum swipe plan. This many buffet meals can sound attractive to incoming students, and the Rutgers University Dining Services web page displays each plan alongside the amount of meals per week each plan would constitute. The 210 swipe plan and 120 swipe plan respectively offer eight meals and 14 meals a week. However, even the minimum residential 120 swipe plan will run students a costly $2,095. This checks out to about $17 per meal swipe. Worse still, incoming freshmen who plan to dorm on campus are required to have 210 meal plan, raising the expenses of students in dorms by a significant $2,552. My own experience as a Rutgers University student has taught me that 120 swipes is not exactly equivalent to 120 full meals. It is common for students at Rutgers to work while attending school, and this coupled with the minimum 120 credits students need to achieve to graduate can often result in students finding themselves unable to balance their schedules well enough to eat the amount of meals recommended by the university. Stocking up on meal swipes to use the next semester won’t benefit students either; the swipes will expire at the end of the semester.
If students and their wallets manage to survive freshman year, they may look to move off campus into apartments or houses in the city surrounding Rutgers University. Obtaining a proper meal can become much harder for these off-campus students. Students who do not live in a residence hall or dorm have the scanter options of a 75 meal swipe plan that will cost them $1,186 (five meals a week) or a 50 meal swipe plan that goes for $850 (three meals a week.) The increase in cost per meal relative to the decrease in meals per week keeps the meal swipe alternative away from the minds of more economical students, but it may still require an extra push to convince these students that the food pantry is a viable option for them.
The Rutgers Food Pantry allows students to obtain a suggested week’s worth of groceries with multiple options available from every food group free of charge to ensure that students are able to stay nourished during their studies. Receptionists at the pantry are often Rutgers students as well, and work with visitors to ensure they collect a healthy amount of food to last them through the week. The pantry even offers miscellaneous items for students to use, such as laundry detergent and deodorant. Generous donations to the food pantry keep it stocked for student use, and every visitor receives a single reusable cloth bag, which they are advised to bring back the next time they gather groceries from the pantry to ensure that this charitable practice remains as altruistic and sustainable as possible. Despite these many benefits, students are hesitant to rely on the pantry for meals.
This may be as simple as a case of bad PR. “I had never been to the food pantry. To be honest, I didn’t know Rutgers had a food pantry until just now,” says student Kevin Kornecki. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind for groceries in the future.”
His roommate and fellow student Mehul Mistry was also unaware of the pantry’s existence. “What kind of bad marketing is that? I’ve been here for four years.”
Even students who have been to the food pantry agree that there is something keeping other students away. “People don’t know that it exists, or they don’t feel like they qualify, or they’re embarrassed,” says Shileen Hernandez. “Rutgers should do more to let students know about it.”
Rutgers University, as the state university of New Jersey, receives 20 percent of its revenue from state government apportionment and state-paid fringe bills. This percentage of the school’s revenue is second in size only to the funding the school collects from its students in the form of tuition and other bills, which makes up for 29 percent of Rutgers’ revenue. At an institution where the head coach of a football team has a salary of $2.1 million despite his team winning a total of seven of 36 season games played from 2016 to 2018, there is little valid excuse for students to rely on donation for meals, and even less excuse for those students to be largely unaware of the existence of a food bank run by their own university on campus.
