“For the love of money.”
No, not the 1973 classic by the O’Jays.
Rather, an indictment of the costly “keeping up with the Joneses” culture that has pervaded higher education.
Over the past decade, the cost of higher education in the United States has risen faster than the rate of inflation. From 2001 to 2011, after adjusting for inflation, undergraduate tuition and room and board at private, not-for-profit institutions rose an astonishing 31 percent, while the same costs rose an eye-popping 42 percent at public institutions.
Furthermore, a 2013 Wall Street Journal article noted that total student debt increased by 51 percent between 2008-2012, totalling nearly $1 trillion. As a result, 35 percent of students under the age of 30 are delinquent on their debt repayments, up from just 21 percent in 2004.
With colleges across the country striving to be on the cutting edge of the cultural arms race, they have turned to pointless amenities such as lazy rivers and indoor running tracks, while settling for mismatched floor tiles and mildewed ceiling tiles in their libraries. The methods that some universities choose veers off of the educational path and towards the recreational one, in hopes of attracting students.
However misplaced their priorities, the costs of these glorified recruiting tools are off loaded onto the heavily burdened backs of students by the universities, many of these students will go on paying their loans long after leaving college.
If you’re a freshman or sophomore student living in a residence hall on our campus, you’re really getting the shaft.
Never mind the fact you’re paying exclusive prices to live in musty, outdated dormitories that make military barracks look good — where they’re really sticking it to you is the forced purchasing of a meal plan.
Indeed, the cheapest meal plan available to freshmen and sophomores living in dormitories, dubbed the “TIGER 12,” costs $1,976 per semester. This allows them to eat 12 meals a week at a dining hall and allots $600 towards “Paw Points” to be spent at any of the bevy of fast food restaurants on or around campus. Averaged out over the course of a typical four month semester, these students spend approximately $494 a month to eat.
In 2014, the United States Department of Agriculture conducted a study to determine the average cost of food cooked at home at four levels: thrifty, low-cost, moderate-cost and liberal.
Persons aged 19-50 who were classed into the liberal level spent approximately $351 a month on food.
If the USDA identifies spending $351 a month on food as “liberal,” I cringe at the thought of what they’d classify spending a minimum of $494 a month, which I’m sure includes the salaries of food service workers. Such gross overpricing would likely bring a tear to the eye of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer.
Getting heated? Perhaps a soak in the new lazy river that you’re also being coerced to pay for will cool you down.
Compounding the overpriced meal plans is the fact that these “Paw Points” can only be spent in certain establishments on campus like McDonald’s, Starbucks and Chik-Fil-A, and “healthy” options like Smoothie King and Subway, which are not necessarily health conscious. It’s no secret that most smoothies are sugar bombs and a lot of the meat at Subway is of lesser quality, historically speaking. On the Geaux offers salads, but should health conscious Paw Points users have their options outside of dining halls limited to a simple salad?
Forcing these points and in essence — these meals — onto students in-residence is hypocritical, especially considering the research the university has done regarding fast food and proper nutrition.
In 2003, LSU AgCenter nutritionist Heli Roy cited research that revealed fat, energy, sodium and saturated fat intake were higher, and vitamin A and C intakes were lower on days when diners ate fast foods. Further research from Pennington Biomedical research Center concluded that children who consumed more fast food also consumed fewer vegetables in general. In short, forced purchasing and use of these Paw Points is sabotaging the health of new students.
Additionally, our university adopts the “use it or lose it” ideology when it comes to Paw Points. While they roll over from fall to spring semester assuming you also purchase a meal plan for spring, they are lost for good if they remain in your account past that.
Speaking of songs, “Yeah, that’s the way you do it, money for nothing…”
Christopher Godail is a 27-year-old interdisciplinary studies junior from Kenner, Louisiana.