COLUMN: USD food prices extreme and unfair

It’s become somewhat of a sad joke amongst us older students when we hear the freshmen talking excitedly about their flex dollars. As a person who will be graduating at the end of this year, allow me to make a statement all of us students come to learn but rarely say out loud — the whole flex dollar system, as well as the stores at which they can be spent, is a system specifically created to scam both the freshmen as well as the gullible, out of their money.

The first way this can be proven is in examining the value of the flex dollar versus that of real currency. For this demonstration we’ll be using the Flex-A plan, a plan you would pay $1,294.90 dollars to the university. In return you are given 1,215 flex dollars, with around $80 being taken out for a facility fee. Financially speaking, you are already paying out more than you are receiving in return, and that’s before we discuss the “reasonable” rates for food you’ll be using this cash for.

Let me make something clear, I’m not against meal plans or even the idea of placing money in something so long as it’s useful. Members who live in my fraternity house pay $450 each in return for an equivalent amount of coyote cash. This ensures that the person has money with which they can spend at the grocery store or local restaurants, while preventing them from spending the money on things like booze or other less fruitful endeavors. If flex dollars were as useful as coyote cash then I would have no problem with USD forcing its freshmen, and those living in the dorms, to pay for it as all or part of their meal plan.

The problem with flex dollars however, is that they are not nearly as useful or valuable as coyote cash. Flex dollars can only be spent at University dining locations or stores, and severely limits the diet and health choices of its students. The selection of food is limited at best and is also often of poor quality. I know I’ve bit into more than one apple to find it bruised or have been sold strawberries well past their expiration date. And if the flex dollars are not all spent at the end of the academic year, forget about receiving a refund because you are not getting it.

All of this could theoretically balance out if the food you were paying for was equal to the dollars being spent. Except, even here, the system seems geared to wringing out students for every penny they’re worth. The price of products in the stores in comparison to the grocery stores in town are abysmally high, some of them to the point of being jaw dropping. A 15.5-ounce box of Oreos for example, cost, with tax, $3.64, while the same box would cost you $7.39 at one of the school stores before the sales tax. So, in essence, you could buy two boxes of cookies at the grocery store with tax, and it would less expensive to buy a single box of the same brand on campus and before the sales tax. And this wasn’t the only case, nearly every non-baked item in the store was more expensive than at the grocery.

These prices seemed extremely high even for a college store, so I asked the Aramark director in charge of USD’s dining services, Adam Chicoine why the prices were what they were. Aramark is the company that runs USD’s dining and food stores on campus. His response was as follows: “The stores on campus are not competing with the grocery stores, they are competing with the other convenience stores. That’s why the prices are so high.”

This answer makes sense to a degree; the availability of the product should equal to a slight raising of the price, but not to the level it’s currently at. Even when compared to other convenience stores around town, the store’s products are often more expensive. I thought the idea of competition was to offer the best prices and/or the highest quality product, both of which the university stores are failing to deliver. How can businesses like the USD stores continue to sell products to student’s who know they are being taken for a ride?

The answer to this situation becomes very apparent, albeit one that is distressing to think about. These stores are able to sell their products because for many of their customers they have no choice. Freshmen and those on a meal plan are forced to spend their flex on overpriced food that guarantees Aramark a profit, and any flex that is not spent can be wiped from the students account and redistributed into USD’s budget. Some people on campus have linked this to extortion, but at least the extortionist has the good nature to take your money face-to-face and not go through the charade that somehow you’re getting the better deal out of this. It’s clear who’s profiting from this deal, and it’s not the students.

So, if I can urge any students on meal plans to do anything, I’d recommend moving off campus and off anything to do with flex dollars as soon as possible. Yes, I understand this will mean having to go beyond the comfort zone of the campus by renting an actual apartment and cooking your own food, but financially and mentally you’ll be much better off. At the very least when you spend cash at Hy-Vee or Walmart it won’t feel like a slap in the face.

Reach columnist Steven Campbell at [email protected].