As all undergraduate students enrolled with nine hours or more at the University should know, a fee of $325 is charged to our student account for what is called “Dining Dollars.” As I’m sure we all heard at our Bama Bound orientations or through various other recruiting methods utilized by the University, Dining Dollars is a form of payment that can be used at various locations on campus as well as Domino’s and Buffalo Phil’s.
Everything sounds fun, fine and fabulous when you think of the semester you’ll spend hanging out at the Ferguson Center trying out all the great new additions to the restaurants offered on campus or the ease of ordering pizza for a night in with your friends. The reality of the situation is that the $325 or estimated $2.73 per day Dining Dollars you were equipped with does not allow for this to happen.
In my two full years of experience at the University, it is quite possible to make the previously $300, now $325 Dining Dollars, stretch across the semester. But this cannot be achieved by spending $2 a day. You will simply just have to skip a day or two of fine dining for a day of splurging on a five to eight dollar meal, and that’s a cheap meal. This method is easy to do when one has a meal plan, but plenty of students live off campus and do not have a use for a meal plan and are forced to pay for Dining Dollars anyway.
Students may apply to be exempt from the program for various reasons including but not limited to marriage or being the head of household. Unacceptable reasons include being a member of a fraternity or sorority, living off campus or living at home. If you feel as though this program is a little bogus, you are not the only one. Unfortunately, in lawsuits brought up by students in 2011, the Dining Dollars program was found to be legal.
Essentially, Dining Dollars are $325 we pay to the University to put on our student card for us to use at certain locations. This would be no different than keeping the $325 and spending it at our own discretion, so one really has to wonder: What’s the deal with Dining Dollars?
If the answer is that Dining Dollars is providing quality food at a discount to students, that’s simply not true. At local Chick-fil-A restaurants, a number one combination meal, which includes a Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich, a regular order of waffle fries and a regular sized drink, costs $6.31. On campus that same meal costs $7.29. Although a $0.98 difference may not seem like a lot, in terms of a $2.73 per day budget, that one meal is equal to 2.67 meals.
The Dining Dollars program also takes away from local businesses, as many students would rather use money they have already spent than spend out of pocket for other restaurants. The Dining Dollars program appears to be more of a nuisance than a necessity to students as a whole on campus, and students would be better off with the choice of opting out of the program.
Erynn Williams is a junior majoring in interdisciplinary studies. Her column runs biweekly.
