SU Debuting New Meal Plan in the Fall

By Zach Richter

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Syracuse University announced that they will be revamping the meal plan next semester. Instead of having weekly meal swipes, the university will be switching to a block meal plan where students receive meal swipes based on a semester. This upcoming fall students will have new options when choosing their meal plan with the unlimited, 220, 130, or 80, meals a semester. However, not all students like this change and prefer the old system. 

Junior Sydney Davis says she thinks the change will be much more confusing.

“I think that’s really hard to keep track of because a lot of time, at least for me, like I keep track of like how much money and the meal swipes I can spend,” said Davis

Currently, if a student does not use all of their meal swipes in a week, they will lose them as they do not roll over into the next week. 

Advertising major Lange Delapa says that’s she likes this change as it will not lead her wasting any meal swipes. 

“I always find that I have 10 meals or so many meals left over by the end of the week and I wished that I would have gone down a little bit and I think that not constraining the number of meals per week offers a lot more flexibility and a lot more freedom,” said Delapa. 

Gillian Canter, the interim Director of Meal Plan Services at SU, says that this was one of the driving factors for the change. 

Canter said, “Because students were losing meals, we weren’t taking into account the time students were away from campus. They went to go visit friends, thanksgiving break. Those weeks still went on but students wouldn’t necessarily be here to claim those meals.”

Another part of the new meal plan system is that students will only be able to use their meal swipes at dining halls and not at Schine. Sophomore Dante Dalga says he is frustrated with this change. 

“I used it all the time in Schine. Taking away meal swipes from Schine, you know it’s really frustrating. Now, I’m going to have to pay real money for food in Schine. I love the food in Schine and I like to use meal swipes there,” said Dalga

Another concern of this new system is the prices however the prices are going to be very similar to the previous system.