“My entire family of four doesn’t spend that much on food a year,” she told me. My friend had just graduated high school – she was talking about the Dining Plan the University will charge her come fall. “I’m here on scholarship – I don’t know if my parents have that much.”

Alabama is requiring all freshmen to purchase an unlimited meal plan when school begins this year. Before, freshmen were required to purchase 160 meals per semester, and last year, it was rare I found a student who spent them all.

“Maybe I could get out of it somehow?”

“It’s unlikely,” I told her. I know the requirement too well – last year, I sent countless emails to Bama Dining in an attempt to get a free pass. No luck.

Meal plans are unusually overpriced. The average cost of food prepared at home for the student age bracket runs in the mid-$200 range per month, according to the most recent USDA data. An unlimited meal plan per semester, over four months, costs $1,525. If we add in mandatory dining dollars, our total food cost per semester comes to $1,825. This is almost double the $1,000 we’d expect to spend.

Even so, meal plans have their advantages. We don’t have to cook our meals in the dorms, nor do we have to run to the grocery store for ingredients. Washing the dishes is taken care of. This work that goes into food preparation must have a cost too, right?

Our University has made the executive decision that freshmen are better off focusing on school instead of how they’ll get food day and night. I can’t speak for everyone, but when I lived at home, my mother cooked nearly every night, and if not, she told me what I could warm up. It was only in college I realized having a home-cooked meal every day is much more than the cost of food alone. Bama Dining does its best to imitate home-cooked meals, but catering to thousands of students comes with some tradeoffs. Quantities are portioned, and lines are long. The beef patties in the burgers are sliver thin; the salad bar is the best option for many who need to get in and get out. As we grow tired of Lakeside, we need more than salt and pepper shakers to fix it.

As a freshman, I would complain daily about how the University was jipping me. In retrospect, though, I can’t deny the conversations, the hassle-free meals and the tables I’d push together to eat with friends at Dining Halls. Although I may have spent some extra money, I’d say a meal plan was worth it.

It’s hard for me to accept forced purchases, but meal plans are worth the cost. Don’t like cafeteria food? Either cook yourself or put up with it.

Tarif Haque is a columnist for The Crimson White and a sophomore majoring in computer science.