Members of the Student Government Association are fighting a recent proposition put forth by Loyola’s administrators to make a meal plan mandatory for all students living on campus. The plan, which the SGA was first informed of last Tuesday, would require that, beginning next fall, students living on campus purchase an $800 meal plan or a $900 Wolfbucks plan.
While administrators are saying that the mandate would help alleviate the school’s debts from Katrina, many SGA members are arguing that the minor financial benefit would be outweighed by the burden the requirement would put on the students, and it would potentially drive students off campus.
“The reward doesn’t balance out the consequences,” said Andre Breaux, arts and sciences representative and communications sophomore.
“Looking at the numbers, it might make sense, but I don’t think they factored in the students’ point of view,” he said.
Among those Carrollton residents who say they would move off campus is Michael Girardot, music business sophomore, who has been buying his own groceries this year to save money.
“It’s just wrong,” Girardot said. “The logical thing to do would be to just make the food service better, and then more people would buy in without being forced into it.”
“I knew this was going to go over like a lead balloon,” said Chris Cameron, Loyola’s director of student activities.
After Katrina, said Cameron, Loyola developed a Tuition and Fees Committee to look for ways to produce more revenue to pay off the university’s debts, which are around $20 million. After looking at the numbers, Cameron said, he proposed the idea of making some form of meal plan mandatory for all students living on campus.
Around 400 students on campus opt not to have a meal plan, said Cameron, and he admitted that this decision will negatively affect them. Out of the 4,100 total students at Loyola though, Cameron felt this decision could aid the community as a whole.
Bob Payne, an English sophomore and member of SGA, argued that the plan was a ploy to trap students, who currently have to live on campus because of local real estate prices, into a limiting situation in order to get more money out of them.
“The university is in pretty substantial debt. They’re getting money wherever they can, and they picked this as a good way to get money from students,” Payne said. “But I think it’s a really bad idea.”
“One-tenth of the student body is being affected by this decision, but it’s raising money for everyone,” Cameron said.
He said that the change would increase revenue to the university by at least $50,000 a year and provide Loyola greater leverage in negotiating with Sodexho, the food services provider for campus, in providing better food services around campus.
The plan may only affect 400 people, said Breaux, but “it’s putting a burden on a small percentage of the students.”
Cameron said that the university would not enact this plan without consideration for the students’ perspective, and that plan would help allow for tuition to stay flat next semester, despite the school’s considerable debt. As has always been the case, exceptions would be made for students with food allergies or religious requirements, said Cameron, and Financial Aid will find ways to accommodate students for whom the addition financial burden is significant. Also, Cameron promised that by the fall semester, the Underground will be open, and pizza will once more be available in the C-store.
SGA was set to hold a meeting Thursday at 5 p.m. in the Danna Center to voice its concerns to Cameron and the other members of the Tuition and Fees Committee.
“They’re probably going to do it,” Payne said. “But we’re going to try and stop them.”
Kevin Corocran can be reached at [email protected].
