Students here at OU aren’t given many choices when it comes to meal plans. In the article, “Market Mark-Ups: OU students call for change,” it was stated that students can either spend their meals at the dining halls, or spend them at the OU markets. The article also states how overpriced items are at the OU markets. Students are often surprised to find they grabbed too many items for how many meals they have left. Giving students the ability to use their meal plans at other local restaurants and markets would help students, increase admission here at OU and encourage the growth of local businesses.
Allowing students to use their meal plans at local restaurants such as Bagel Street Deli would help students financially and convenience-wise. The meal plans themselves would be much more appealing if students were able to instead use these meals at local restaurants or grocery stores. This would save students money since products at OU markets are overpriced. In addition, the meal plans would become more convenient for students. I myself, a junior here at OU, remember running into issues while trying to get a meal at Grab N Go stations before class because of long lines. If a student is in a rush and needs a meal before class, they could stop at Wendy’s or Jimmy John’s to avoid long lines.
Making a change to the meal plan system could furthermore increase admission to OU. Having a good meal plan is definitely a huge perk of attending larger schools, such as OSU. According to OSU student Matt Schoelwer, students are able to use their meal plans at locations such as Raising Cane’s, McDonald’s and many more locations. Given the many optional locations that OSU students can use their meal plans, it’s no wonder that their number of undergraduates almost triples ours at about 50,000 undergraduates.
The new meal plans would also encourage the growth of local businesses. By buying products from local grocery stores and restaurants, students would be spending money to help the local economy. The more products these businesses sell, the more they will need to buy from local farms, which in turn helps local farms become more profitable. Some might argue that this would take away from OU’s profits because it would turn students away from dining halls. But this would actually encourage more students who aren’t freshmen or sophomores to buy a meal plan, which then would increase profits.
By changing OU’s meal plan system to something similar to Ohio State University’s, we could see Ohio University’s meal plans become more efficient, as well as help local businesses. The goal of making a change to meal plans is not to just make it a better purchase for students but to improve Ohio University and its community as a whole.
Max Gimperling is a junior studying information and telecommunication systems at Ohio University.
