Students have always wondered about the money they spent on their meal plans. Why does crappy food cost so much? But lately, the big thing on students’ minds has been how many meals they’ve paid for versus how many they’ve actually used.

According to Simpson’s housing policies, students living in all campus housing (excluding apartments, Greek houses and theme houses) are required to have at least the 12 Flex meal plan, which is equal in cost to the 20 meal plan. That’s all well and good, the college wants to make sure that everyone is eating at least half-way decent while they’re at school. But what happens when students’ schedules don’t match up with the hours of the dining hall? What about students that are absent for college-sponsored events? Do those students just lose out on those meals that were paid for?

There is a “missed meal” plan in place now that assumes there will be a number of missed meals each week, but where does the money for those meals go if students are paying for 20 meals per week and they only use 15 of those? Is that money absorbed in food costs? Administrative fees?

Students and families are taking a serious look at how their money is spent. It’s only fair to be looking at the cost of our meals on campus. Students may have a lot of misconceptions about how the dining operations are run, and a lot of that could be cleared up with a clear break-down of how our money is spent,.

Personally, we think the idea of a roll-over plan is a great idea and would benefit all the students. After all, it worked for cell-phone companies, didn’t it?