university catering and monopolies

[gusl]

Since starting college in 1997, one trend I've noticed all over North America (but not Brazil or Europe) is the concept of a meal plan, which has the effect of financially exploiting undergrads. One memory from my undergrad days was paying US$7 for a small box of Cheerios, because it would go to waste otherwise. Another was treating a ~40-year-old visiting mathematician to dinner, which made him feel awkward. Another was getting a phone call from a Wood Company liaison, in response to a complaint card of mine about limited choices, to "educate" me in person about why their service, in fact, doesn't suck. Nice try!

I cannot think of any reason why universities would grant exclusivity to any catering companies, but it really seems to be the case in most places.

Googling "meal plan"+monopoly produces surprisingly few links:
* Stanford Dining Exerts Monopoly Power (2005, Stanford)
* Chartwells an upgrade, mandatory meal plan still a problem (2007, McNeese State University, Louisiana)

Comments

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

I think that universities get better prices for these large contracts. There was an outcry when our university did not renew their contract with Coca-Cola and went with Pepsi. I think it was a multi-year contract too. All the fountain drinks in the cafeteria became Pepsi, all the campus vending machines, etc. I think you could still buy Coca-Cola at the campus convenience stores.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

The Coke/Pepsi exclusivity phenomenon saddens me, and I can see how it happens (university gets good prices; drink companies get some loyal customers).

What was the outcry about?

[altamira16.livejournal.com]

I think that people were upset about losing Dr. Pepper, but then they realized that they gained Mountain Dew.

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

The day I discovered I could eat put at the restaurants for every single meal was the day I got off meal plan in undergrad. It was $7 per meal, in 1998. The following year, they made meal plan mandatory "to promote socialization."

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

ooh, I hoped Brown would do better than that.

[bobert-mcbob.livejournal.com]

SFU's residence has a mandatory meal plan for ~1k people living in the towers. The food wasn't all that good (though it wasn't too bad, I've heard it was worse in the past), but it was priced like it was good food. That ~$15 would have paid for a much better burger and fries as Red Robin (or wherever has good burgers for about the same price).
I don't think they ever attempted to say that a mandatory meal plan was a good idea for that part of residence due to socialization. Their rationale mainly was that the towers didn't have kitchen facilities.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wonder if a flimsy excuse ("you don't have kitchens") is better than no excuse at all ("our budget has always depended on exploiting undergrads and now it's your turn."). I'd prefer the latter myself.