The Board of Regents heard a proposal this week from South Dakota State University to charge every student a food facility fee. Let’s call it the FFF, since that’s the grade I would give this plan.
Currently, SDSU (like BHSU, Mines, and USD) charges meal plan purchasers a separate food facility fee. At SDSU, that fee is $188.80 per semester, whether students buy the cheapest meal plan ($681) or the most expensive ($1,745). So we could say the FFF is already regressive, taking the same dollar amount from every participating student, whether that student can afford minimal or maximal use of campus food service. Students splurging on the high-end plan are paying a 11% FFF “tip” on their meal plan cost; students scraping by at the low end pay a 28% “tip.”
“With recent renovations and relocations of food service facilities to student unions and other locations,” says the Regents’ Agenda Item 6-M, “university food service facilities now serve non-residential students in addition to the traditional residential students.” Last year, non-meal-plan customers made 21.1% of purchases and coughed up 19.3% of revenue at SDSU food service locations. (Trivia: In FY2015, SDSU food service did $7.4 million in business on 990,000 purchases. Average per purchase: $7.46. Average per meal-plan customer: $7.57. Average per non-meal-plan customer: $6.93.)
Thus, SDSU reasons, customers off the street should pay a food facility fee:
The proposed change would be revenue neutral – the facility fee on the meal plans would be removed and the General Activity Fee would be increased to recover the revenue currently received from the facility fee. The current facility fee for SDSU meal plans is $188.80 and generates approximately $1.4 million in revenue. Based on the state-support credit hour base, the General Activity Fee would need to be increased by $5.90 to make this change revenue neutral. This would result in a savings to meal plan students of approximately $200.60 per year {$377.60 ($188.80*2) – $177.00 ($5.90*30) = $200.60}. Other students, those not on a meal plan, will see an increase in fees of $5.90 per credit hour or $177.00 per year for a full-time undergraduate student, or $141.60 for a full-time graduate student [South Dakota Board of Regents, Agenda Item 6-M, 2015.10.07 –08].
SDSU views charging everyone for food service fair because everyone benefits from the mere existence of on-campus dining:
The change would more fairly spread the costs of food services being generally available in student union facilities, according to Doug Wermedel, SDSU vice president for student affairs.
He said the current fee is similar to four houses along a street and only three of the house owners paying for the street [Bob Mercer, “SDSU Wants New Approach for Paying for Food Facilities,” Mitchell Daily Republic, 2015.10.08].
VP Wermedal chooses the wrong analogy. All four houses on a street use the street. They drive and bike on it. Their guests come and go on it. The postman delivers their mail on it. The cops and fire trucks respond to their 911 calls on it. A street is a genuine public utility, a common carrier.
SDSU food service is a consumer choice, a product students are free to buy or not buy. (Well, some of them: SDSU still requires freshmen and sophomores to buy meal plans, which strikes me as much as a racket now as it did when I enjoyed four thrilling years in Hansen and Wecota Annex and discovered I could feed myself on Hamburger Helper and other bachelor pan wonders for half or better the price of a meal plan.) The more appropriate analogy would be to say the current FFF is similar to four passersby on Main Street and only one of the passersby stopping in to Brass Kettle, buying a burger, and tipping the waitress. SDSU is proposing shaking every passerby down for a tip, because, you know, she’s there for you in case you do decide to stop in.
SDSU isn’t even offering a plan that assesses a fee proportionate to use. I appreciate that a flat fee for everyone is administratively simple (although in the age of spreadsheets, we can calculate a practically infinite column of sliding fees with a formula and two keystrokes). But under the flat FFF (another F!), the student who can afford the gold-plated meal plan will pay only a 5% FFF, while range science major who lives on her own pheasant and walleye all semester and buys one $5 burger during finals week will pay an FFF of 1,770% (notice, that’s a comma, not a decimal).
I won’t argue that offering food service is as extraneous to the Regents’ mission of providing higher education as their desire to get liquor licenses to lubricate their donors. But I will argue that the universal food facility fee deserves an F-F-F. Like any other restaurant, campus food service should be able to pay all of its bills—food, supplies, wages, building—on the revenue it makes from selling food. It should not impose costs on students who choose or need to brown-bag it. SDSU should bag this plan and adopt Northern and DSU’s method of simply folding facility costs into the price of the actual food served.
I’m guessing the athletes get a much better,much larger spread to feast upon than mere students.At the U of iowa the football team rakes in enough dough to support the rest of the sports programs every year and then some those rare years they get to a New Year’s Day bowl or later. iowa received 18 million bucks the same as loser Georgia Tech.
Mike-I doubt that the athletes get special treatment. We are Division I, but I don’t think we have that kind of money coming in.
This idea is crazy. Are they going to start charging faculty FFF as well? We are required to use Aramark Catering for all events on campus and their prices are high.
I doubt that they mentioned that several of the food service facilities are NOT open on the weekends, and the only dining hall remaining on campus is Larson Commons, which has limited weekend hours.
One of the happiest days of my student life was when I got to dump NSC’s campus meal plan. The food company was named Prophet, and you know we deliberately misspelled it regularly.
The best school food I ever had, seriously, was at St. Lawrence Grade School (suburb of Miller) in the 1960s. Mrs. Klapperich, the head cook, was the Best!
Campus Food contracts are nothing more than legalized monopolies . Students can eat at many off campus facitlites cheaper than on campus. I think it is time to allow Food Trailers in campus to create competition..
If students are to learn about the real world including the world of business in college, then they food service should charge the building fee in the price of food just like McDonalds does. This double charging just makes the food look cheaper. While college costs go up making sure no one cooks their own food just makes it much harder for the poor to go to college. Absolutely not a good plan at all. The student union should be one of those services of a place to meet other students without a fee involved even if they take their own coke and popcorn and pay for nothing at all. If you teach them that in the world out there they will be conned by anyone that can, they will be ready for a conservative world but that is not necessarily a good attitude on life as we should know it. Cafe’s in the past all had a free refill on coffee, is that all over and massive profits the only goal.
Talk about naked breasts and smiting! These money grubbers need to be smitten down hard with a belly whomp to the back of the head. What is wrong with these Regent people? They should all be voted out immediately and put some common sense people in charge.
Grudz, they (these Regent people you refer to) are appointed by your Governor.
Dr. Math, good point! By the proposal’s logic, everyone who benefits from the mere presence of the food service facilities should pay the FFF. Faculty benefit; faculty should thus pay. Visitors benefit; visitors should thus pay… which is why SDSU should be folding that cost into the price of the food its serves instead of imposing it as a flat fee disproportionate to actual consumer choices.
Sam, I’d think the food truck people would leap at the chance to park on a busy corner of campus and sell tacos and hot dogs to students on the run… and I’ll bet students would love that option.
Just as it is public ground and petition mongers can roam freely, the food truckers should be able be where they want on the campus too. That is a great idea, Mr. H. And at the School of Mines too.
Brookings City Council just approved food trucks here. Backyard Grill in Brookings has a food truck and I would love to see them park really close to campus.
How does this affect the “private” food businesses that have been allowed to take hold on our Regental campuses? SDSU is home to, for example, a Chick-fil-A, an Einstein Bros Bagels, an Extreme Pita, and a Panda Express. There are other places, too, but I think some of them are Aramark-run but given a name that makes them sound like they’re not (the One Stop Rabbit Stop, for example). Our state loves to make sweetheart deals with corporations to attract them, and I’m assuming that’s the only way big chain restaurants like Chick-Fil-A would agree to locate on campuses. I’m guessing they also would need some assurances of making a profit. Could that be another reason for the outrageous prices? Does anyone know?
Dave, who wouldn’t want a captive audience of consumers required to purchase meal plans?
Grudz, we petition mongers don’t get to roam freely. The BOR has a policy declaring that our public campuses are not free-speech zones for the general public. Booooo! Our campuses should be free-speech zones. I wouldn’t mind if they were also free-taco zones. ;-)