Meet Ethan Edwards. Ethan is a freshmen undeclared business major at the U of A from Greenbrier, Arkansas. He is a member of Beta Upsilon Chi, a fraternity on campus. During his free time, he likes to watch sports, movies, play guitar, and do things like fish and hike outdoors. Currently, his favorite restaurant in Fayetteville is the Rolling Pin Cafe.
A major financial aspect of organizing your student’s time at college is the meal plan. How often will he/she eat at a dining hall? How many flex dollars should I buy for the plan? What will affect how often my student eats at a dining hall? These are all important questions to ask before making this decision, and hopefully I can help you make this decision with this blog post!
First, let’s lay out all the options for meal plans that are on the table (pun intended). Most of them are organized in increments of meals per week:
Plan Flex Yearly Rate
10 per week $125 $1608
15 per week $75 $1732
15 plus $175 $1783
Unlimited $50 $1883
Unlimited Plus $150 $1928
To give you some context, Flex Dollars are basically dollars that have municipal uses on campus. For instance, with the flex I have on my student ID, I can buy gum or a bag of chips from Club Red. I could also use it to purchase a meal from on campus dining areas like Slims and Chick-Fila. I have written a blog post previously that gives you a “low-down” on the whole system.
So, the dining halls on campus on Brough, Fulbright, and Pomfret. The most trafficked of these is Brough. Located on the top of the hill, across from Kimpel Hall and North of Humphries and Yocum Hall, Brough is the lunch location for many students on campus. I find myself eating lunch at Brough every day of the school week. But, my class schedule allots for this, and those who have schedules that start after lunch might not necessarily do the same as me. Although I eat every day of the week there, I can say that my eating patterns are slightly irregular. This is going to be the same for the average student. Ultimately, the decision comes to this. As a parent, do you think you can nail down how many meals a week your student will eat at a dining hall? If you can, then you need to take this information (schedules, meal trade, need for flex dollars, etc.) and sort-of, budget out the weeks meals with your student. If you can’t, like my parents could not, it would be best to choose unlimited. Everything is situational, but choosing the Unlimited plus plan was the best option for me. However, not all students are like me and many may prefer eating meals they make themselves in their residence halls or kitchens. I hope this has been helpful in making your decision and Go Hogs!