Students bristle at WSU mandatory meals plan fee
ssutner@telegram.com
WORCESTER — Harrison Ingles works a couple of part-time night jobs and attends Worcester State University full time as a commuter student.
Always on the go, he rarely stops to eat on campus.
Even so, Mr. Ingles, and all commuter students, are facing a $100-per-semester meals plan charge — whether they eat on campus or not.
The mandatory charge is part of a package of $7,534 in fees ($1,498 more if students buy health insurance through the school) that has more than doubled over the last decade and makes up the bulk of the cost of attending the university. Under the Massachusetts higher education system, tuition — at WSU, $970 — is a small fraction of the total cost.
The meals fee, which doubled from last year, is forfeited to the Chartwells food service provider if students don't use it up by the end of the year.
"It's really not fair," Mr. Ingles, a junior, said as he rushed from his car in the student lot to an English exam one morning last week.
Mr. Ingles and other commuters also criticized the rationale for the fee as explained in the WSU commuter handbook: "This is to encourage you to become part of the student community in the Student Center."
Mr. Ingles said that many commuter students don't have time for, or interest in, socializing on campus. And he said he has never used more than a few dollars of the food and beverages he is being charged for.
"That's absurd," he said. "We're from Worcester. Let's be realistic. Everybody already knows each other. When we go out, we go to Green Street or Millbury Street. That's a little far-fetched for a rationale."
Worcester State spokeswoman Renae Lias Claffey took issue with terming the charge a fee.
"We recognize that any mandatory costs can be a burden for some students," Ms. Claffey said. "This is technically not a fee, though, since students receive food or beverage in exchange for those dollars, from any of our six Chartwells locations, including the two commuter cafes."
Ms. Claffey said the commuter meal plan is part of a contract with Chartwells in which the company is putting up $7 million toward the $12 million cost of a new 600-seat student cafeteria scheduled to open in the fall along with Worcester State's new dorms.
She argued that many commuters do dine on campus and that most take advantage of the $200 balance, which they can use at several dining halls, two new coffee shops serving Starbucks and other items, and at the Student Center.
"Certainly commuters are having lunch on campus and taking advantage of those facilities," she said.
Ms. Claffey said that as of the midyear point, WSU records show about 80 percent of students on the commuter meal plan are on track to spend down their balances by the end of the year.
About 2,024 students have some balance remaining of the $200 paid, not including any students who paid up front and used the entire $200 for their meal plans in the first semester, Ms. Claffey said.
Of that number, 399 have balances of more than $100 and therefore would be spending less than the average $6.25 per week. These students would have carried over the unspent funds from the first semester, she said.
Ms. Claffey, assistant to WSU President Barry Maloney for campus communications, also noted that Salem State University has a similar fee.
However, Salem State's $660 commuter meal plan is mandatory only for first-year students.
At Worcester State, first-year students, sophomores, juniors and transfer students must pay the fee.
With commuters making up about 70 percent of the university's undergraduate student population of 5,708, that's about $799,200 a year to Chartwells.
The other schools in Worcester State's category — Fitchburg State, Framingham State, Westfield State and Bridgewater State — list no such commuter meals charge on their fee schedules.
Meanwhile, other students interviewed by the T&G bristled at what they said was another annoying, unwanted fee that they say is making traditional commuter schools, such as Worcester State, increasingly difficult to afford.
Last year, the T&G reported student discontent over a $72 pedestrian fee that had been imposed on all students for the purpose of maintaining walkways.
Ms. Claffey, the WSU spokeswoman, noted that tuition and fees, other than those for meals plans, have been frozen for the 2013-14 school year across the public university system.
Michael Allevato, a sophomore commuter from Shrewsbury, said he tries to spend down the Chartwells fee, but hardly ever does.
"I just eat at my house," Mr. Allevato said. "If you're not eating here, why should you get that extra money tacked on?"
As for the commuter handbook argument that the fee encourages students to mingle on campus, Kyle Polewaczyk, a freshman who works jobs in Rutland and Fitchburg when he's not studying and attending classes, just laughed.
"I don't think it's working," he said.
Contact Shaun Sutner at ssutner@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ssutner.
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