Lights on Laurentians: “Can You Swipe for Me Bro?” The Mysterious Case of the Missing Meal Plan Dollars

By: Guest Writer Celia Fleckner 

Alex Clark hops in line for the register at the Pub. She sets her quesadilla down on the counter and pulls out her student ID. She hesitates as she hands the battered card to the bored cashier. Alex waits with bated breath as the woman swipes it into the machine. Gnawing hunger and anxiety curdle together in her gut. She hopes her card will not be rejected.

“Sorry, hun.” The cashier gives her an apologetic look. “You don’t have enough.”

Blushing, Alex feels the blood rush to her face—a blend of embarrassment and panic. Should she just walk out?

“Oh, it’s okay. I got it!” Alex turns her head to find her friend, Lindsey, offering to pay for her meal.

“Are you sure?” she responds gratefully. She can already feel the wave of relief cooling the heat of embarrassment from her face.

There is a month left in the semester, and she has no money left on her meal plan.

“Of course! I’m $400 over on my meal plan. It’s no problem,” Lindsey responds.

St. Lawrence University’s meal plan is one of the many financial obstacles that students face. Whether a student spends too much on their meal plan or too little, the school manages to add additional costs on top of the already hefty tuition.

This isn’t an issue elsewhere. The majority of small liberal arts schools, peer institutions to SLU, have managed to solve meal plan issues. For example, Bates College, one of the NESCAC schools in Lewiston, ME, has unlimited swipes on its meal plan. This swipe program allows all Bates students who purchase the plan unlimited access to food on campus. Furthermore, Bates offers the relatively common service of 24-hour dining. With this system, students do not have to worry about maintaining the “right balance” all year long. Additionally, students at Bates do not have to worry about losing the money they do not spend.

While some students at SLU are running out of money with so much time left in the school year, others have to frantically find ways to spend the extra money they have. For example, if a student does not spend the balance paid in advance, then that student does not get their money back.

Although meal plan money can carry over across semesters, the money disappears between years. Many students lose large sums of money to the “no rollover policy.” Furthermore, there are certain loopholes to the rollover policy that can cause students to lose their excess meal money between semesters. For example, if a student is moving off campus, they automatically lose any remaining meal money- no exceptions.

At the end of the year, if a student still has extra money in their account, there is a spend it or lose it policy. This policy basically means either buy $400 worth of Easy Mac and other non-perishables, or simply wave that money goodbye.

The door to the office clangs shut. I look back self-consciously over my shoulder and see the printed letters “Student Financial Services” vibrating slightly in the aftershock of the slam of the door. Normally I would have apologized for such a raucous entrance, but not today—I am on a mission. I just received the news yesterday: I’m moving off-campus next semester.

After the initial excitement wore off, I began to think about the logistics. While payment for food is incorporated in my sorority house dues, looking ahead, I am aware that I will want to have a few meals on campus next semester. Since I have a few hundred remaining dollars on my meal plan, I make a trip to the Student Financial Services office to confirm that I can use them.

Off-campus housing is one of the many loopholes in the rollover policy at the school. The administration looks for any way to void the validity of claims to your own money. I went into this meeting with an open mind and an awareness that the rollover policy within a school year did not apply to people moving off-campus. Nevertheless, I was optimistic that if I proposed fair, comprehensive, and simple alternatives for the usage of my excess meal money, my propositions would be considered. I suggested putting the money toward my tuition or having it transferred into my campus wide account, but the Financial Services Office was unrelenting in their policy of absorbing my remaining balance into some unknown place. The money was lost to me- no exceptions.

“I don’t understand,” I repeat for a third time. I am hyper-aware of the exasperation in my own voice.

“That’s just the policy,” the financial officer replies in the same bored detached voice he has used with me since I entered the office. His tone only frustrates me further.

“But it’s my money. What gives you to right to just take it?” I try to make my voice steady, demanding. I know it’s no use. I am hardly the first student who has fought the flawed system. The officer looks up at me and meets my eyes for the first time since I entered the room.

“You are asking questions beyond my pay grade,” he responds gently, and I know the conversation is over.

This interaction offered insight into all the fundamental flaws of this policy. The meal plan is just another way in which the school is able to extract money from students. Any student who finishes the semester with a balance remaining on their meal plan is basically just giving the school free money. Even though the school has no real claim to that money, they are unwilling to work to make sure that the money goes back to you.

The school was unwilling to bend their policies in a way that allows the student’s money to benefit them. Instead, they just keep the remaining balance on your meal plan. No one knows what happens to that money—it just mysteriously disappears.

If the remaining money went to some sort of community fund, or if students were at least informed as to what happened to it, that would make the policy slightly more digestible. One of the key problems with the policy is the fact they are unwilling to be flexible with the remaining money and disclose what happens to it, only making the policy more flawed and frustrating.

Once a student gives money to St. Lawrence, they will not get it back—no matter what. Students are put in a position where they’re left to perform a balancing act of trying to not spend too much money, while at the same not keeping too much on their card. The standard argument may be that this program teaches students to budget and introduces them to the fundamental skills of fiscal responsibility. However, all the policy really does is leave students hungry and scared to call home asking for money during finals week.

“I had hundreds of dollars left on my account at the end of first semester, and I had to spend it through buying meals for others and buying random snacks I didn’t need because I was going abroad,” Molly Wood ’18 sharing her meal plan experience.

“If I didn’t spend it on all these unnecessary items, then SLU would have just kept it to go to who knows what. But my family already paid this money and just because I didn’t spend it, why does the school get to keep it?” Molly expresses her confusion and frustration.

Why does St. Lawrence feel the need to pluck subsidiary dollars from its students? The school’s response to the meal plan controversy is admirable in the sense that they worked with the student-run government, the Thelmothesian Society, to redesign the meal plan into a system that is more compatible with the needs of the student body. Nevertheless, it is disappointing that the school was reactive rather than proactive. The situation could have been eradicated more efficiently and with more support from the administration, rather than allowing student-run initiative to fix the meal plan system. If they took initiative rather than waiting for students to demand change, student life on campus could have been improved, and the mysterious case of the missing meal plan dollars could have been absolved.