Editorial: The first-year premium meal plan should be optional

There’s no choice involved. It’s go big or go home. Priced at $3,807 per semester, the Tufts Dining Premium Meal Plan is sold as the “best value for students who want to take full advantage of dining at Tufts and not have to think about planning their own meals while in school.” And while for some students -- first-years and upperclassmen alike -- a premium meal plan may make the most sense, it's not ideal for everyone. As such, it is unfair that all first-years are automatically enrolled in the Premium Meal Plan, with no option to opt out.

The most impractical aspect of this policy is the high cost of the Premium Meal Plan. A prohibitively expensive meal plan raises the already sky-high price of a Tufts tuition and serves as another source of stress for low-income Tufts students. Though many American universities mandate that first-years and even upperclassmen enroll in unlimited meal plans, some schools, such as Northeastern University, offer a few different meal plan packages for first-years. Allowing Tufts first-years to choose between Premium and one or two slightly smaller plans could help students who cannot afford or simply do not want to enroll in an unlimited plan.

Additionally, the nature of the Premium Meal Plan arguably encourages overeating. Students on the Premium Meal Plan can swipe into either Carmichael or Dewick-MacPhie Dining Centers as many times as they want in one day, or they can swipe into Hodgdon Food-on-the-Run or Pax et Lox Glatt Kosher Deli up to three times a day. If you’re not swiping into the dining halls multiple times a day, it’s easy to feel as if you're wasting your money. Everyone's body is different and all require different amounts of nutrition. For some students, the amount of food offered by the Premium Meal Plan is excessive and forces students to choose between overeating and wasting their money.

It makes sense in some ways that Tufts wants to ensure that students are eating well and that dining halls are being utilized. Meal plans can also build a sense of community for first-years, seeing as the dining halls are a place to socialize. But these benefits would not go away if students were offered more choices in their meal plans, and first-years are capable of deciding for themselves how frequently they want to eat. Additionally, for many students, the financial trade-off that an unlimited meal plan necessitates is not worth the returns. 

It is unnecessary and unfair for first-years to be forced to spend thousands of dollars on something they don’t truly need. For this reason, the Premium Meal Plan should be optional for first-years. This unnecessary requirement is just one example of Tufts' status as an institution that imposes exorbitant, unnecessary costs on its students.