Elizabeth Kramer | The Informer
The college myth of the “Freshman 15” where in the first year of school alone freshman gain an average of 15 pounds due to the increasingly poor diet and freedom that comes with being in college doesn’t really exist here at the University of Hartford.
Not that the food here is healthy enough to where students aren’t physically able of gaining weight, it’s that this school doesn’t feel like feeding students on some days.
At the beginning of every semester, students go ahead and select one meal plan they have to use for the rest of the semester with only a few options being presented to them.
An interesting dynamic occurs when one goes about selecting a meal plan for the upcoming year: do they go more dining dollar heavy or meal heavy?
Unfortunately, there really is only one correct answer for this dilemma that I found out in my senior year, great time to figure this out. Going dining dollar heavy is a very poor decision because of the way the University of Hartford decides to go about their pricing of the products around campus.
The Konover market may be the biggest rip off this side of the Mississippi River with the prices being astronomical compared to the retail costs for the items themselves that they’re purchasing.
I understand that it’s a business and they need to create a decent profit margin so they can consistently stay in business, but some of the mark-ups from what they pay to what the students are paying, is disgusting.
Under no circumstances should half the items in Konover cost what they do and the University knows that.
They also know that you have dining dollars to spend, see where I’m getting at?
With only 50, 200, 250 or 450 dining dollars being available to you in a given semester, that money starts to fly by because you need to make up for the lack of meals that this campus offers and where do you spend your dining dollars? Boom, Konover.
I’m sorry, but I chose seven meals a week and 450 dining dollars and it was just…a horrible mistake that I made. I blew through the dining dollars like they were tissues and am now left with seven meals a week for the rest of the semester, god bless me. Seven meals a week doesn’t work for anyone. Not you, not me, not anyone.
What’s disturbing about this entire process is when I am not sure how many meals I have left for the week I go try buying food and when the cashier says “Sorry, out of meals,” on a Tuesday, I’m left with nothing to eat for the next 36 hours until the meal week resets.
It’s absolutely no fault of the employees themselves who have to deny us students food when we don’t have enough meals, but the concept that this school is more than willing to deny students food is mind-blowing.
Forget the “Freshman 15,” I can’t even eat food on this damn campus because of the poor meal plans available and me being trapped in the position that I am, out of dining dollars.
Not everyone has a car on campus or money readily available to buy food out-of-pocket when they run out of meals or dining dollars, so they have to struggle to even find food to hold them off.
I’m sorry, but if I’m spending 45,000 dollars to attend a university, I’m making damn sure that I’m getting fed on a consistent basis.
No worries though ladies and gentleman, the school will just sit back and count their money they’re bringing in from their meal plans because changes won’t be had and we will continue to be hungry.
Wonder why people steal from Konover? Because the meal plans on campus make us steal when we’re out of meals for the week. We’re just not going to sit back and pass up our opportunity to eat each day, so we do something about it.
It’s unsettling to me that we even have to be having this conversation about whether or not I will be able to eat today, but that’s the University of Hartford for you, rather make a dollar than put food in our bellies.