Meal plan: Use it or lose it
Declining balance is great. You can get pizza, coffee and even Starbucks cups with it, and when the semester is over, you can get your money back that you didn’t spend, right? Wrong.
At the beginning of the semester, each student that lives in housing is required to get a meal plan. These plans vary, with the cheapest option being $740, for upperclassmen.
All of this money is expected up front, and is non-refundable, even in special circumstances.
A student at USCA, who was put on medical leave after only a couple short weeks at the school, had officials “laugh in [her] face” when she asked if she could get the money for her meal plan and housing back due to being in the hospital.
She was told that because she used the meal plan once, she was not eligible to receive a refund. She and her family spent $1,377 on a meal plan that could have gone toward her medical bills. She is still fighting against this decision nearly two years later.
School officials now say that she could have filed a report to receive her refund. However, at the time of the incident, when she was unwell and in the hospital, she was told that there was nothing that could be done about the lost funds.
Why are our school officials treating us in this way? Why is it that we pay our own money at the beginning of the semester and they get to keep the left over? Why are we being punished for not eating enough throughout the semester?
Meal plans are important to ensure that students have food to eat while they stay on campus throughout the school year.
What is the school doing to deserve to keep hundreds of dollars from each student with a meal plan, that we paid out of pocket, just because we were unable to spend an absurd amount of money in only four to five months?
College is expensive enough as it is. When you are on your own for the first time ever, it easily becomes overwhelming. School officials should be doing their best to help you get through your education in the most cost-efficient way possible.
They should not be setting you up with an expensive meal plan, knowing that the school will be taking advantage of the funds that you don’t spend.
This column is written with the opinions of one editor and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Pacer Times.
