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.