Dad
Disapproves of Existing Meal Plan
To the Editors:
As the father of one Oberlin student, and the future father-in-law
of another Oberlin student, I am concerned about the sudden adjustments
made to student meal plans just as Fall Semester is underway. Fortunately,
to some degree, it does not affect my children directly since they
are both on CIEE Study Abroad programs this semester. But when they
return for Winter Term/Spring Semester, they will now be faced with
these issues since both also are on work-study and will be forced
to contribute to subsidizing other school programs through the stomachs
of all students.
While I am not intimately familiar with how the
current meal plan programs work at Oberlin, I am familiar with the
outlandish notion of students (ultimately parents like me, who help
pay part of the tuition here) being dumped on because they are low
on the totem pole when it comes to disenfranchisement of basic services
that they need. At $7.50/meal, I could probably live at McDonalds,
or get munchies at the drug store and get by on the price of one
meal a day, whereas students are stuck with this meal plan and forced
to spend these highly inelastic dollars for food that has to pay
for buildings and union dues!!!
In any event, forcing students to “swallow”
this impromptu Enron-esque method to pay for college services is
outlandish and needs to be re-evaluated. Meanwhile...my idea of
a setting up a taco stand outside the Carnegie Building is starting
to sound like a decent business proposition....
–Jim Bradley
Louisville, Ky.
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