Should You Get a Meal Plan? With a Price Breakdown

Ah, the beautiful dining hall tray... So many good memories! 

My freshman year at college, we were all required to have meal plans. But honestly, I did not end up using all of my meal swipes. The dining hall claims to have “Meat-Free Monday’s” but all that they would offer was greasy Alfredo sauce pasta and salty steamed spinach. So, I got creative. I waited 30 minutes in a stir-fry line just to get the brown rice once. The man preparing the stir-fry thought that I was kidding when I said “rice please. No, that will be it”. Then, I would hop on over to the fresh salad bar, and would put black beans and cheese onto the rice. It was rather good. But repetitive. So, I got creative again.

One day, my dining hall introduced hummus and I went crazy. Hummus is da bomb. Like seriously. You can make a fabulous spinach salad by putting 2 tablespoons of hummus on top of the spinach, along with red peppers and topping it with Mrs. Dash and red wine vinegar.

Also, don’t be afraid to ask the people in the dining hall if they have vegetarian options! Turns out that they do, it’s just that not many people ask for them! So, about halfway through the school year, I realized that the dining hall had black bean and rice vegetarian burgers. I would then put it on whole wheat toast and drizzled ketchup and mustard on top. 

In the realm of breakfast, it can get a little boring without creativity. So, outside of eating egg whites, I found a new concoction: wheat toast with peanut butter, bananas, and granola. Yum. Or, you can top yogurt with granola. Or hey, make a waffle using the waffle machine and top it with peanut butter and chocolate chips. 

So, it is possible to survive as a vegetarian at a dining hall! Nevertheless, I’m going to have my own apartment next year and plan on cooking since I grew up with that lifestyle. So, the real question is: what are your circumstances for next year? Is a meal plan necessary? Though college meal plans are super over-priced, they can be essential. 

Here is the price breakdown
Meal Plan for 1 semester at college: $2125.00 
15 weeks = 1 semester
15 meals/week = $9.44  = $ 10.00 per each meal.
This is pretty expensive but it pays for the cost of preparing each meal and covers clean up afterward. 

If you are mentoring a group of freshman college students and you eat dinner with them every Thursday, then yes, you need a meal plan. If you are an engineer and only come home at night and don’t have time to cook, yes, you need a mean plan. If you don’t know how to cook anything besides cereal and yogurt, yes, get a meal plan.

For those of you who will not be getting a meal plan, check out my posts about inexpensive vegetarianism at a college apartment. I provide a checklist!