A few months ago, I was watching the documentary “Almighty Debt” on CNN, a detailed documentary on how debt has ravaged the African-American community and what some community leaders have done to help those in dire financial straits. Pastor DeForest Soaries grabbed my attention when he succinctly explained that, “Being in debt is slavery.” He’s absolutely right. The book of Proverbs, and many other religious texts, state that, “the borrower is slave to the lender.”

For the readers of this column, you are very familiar with the fact that, due to personal experiences of being in debt, I have become somewhat of a crusader against other students going thousands of dollars into debt. While some programs at the Capstone have adverse financial ramifications due to the requirements of being a student here, I have come to the realization that no other program is more financially destructive at this university than the required meal plan and its sister program, Dining Dollars. These two programs alone form the largest sources of financial shackles for students who are forced to borrow to pay for these items because they cannot attend otherwise.

Every year, freshmen are indoctrinated into believing that Dining Dollars and the meal plan are the best way of getting food at a reasonable cost while “fostering community.” That is how the University explains adding this as a non-negotiable part of the student bill. At a minimum, each student must purchase a meal plan each semester of his freshman year at a rate of $1,272 per semester, with an additional $300 in Dining Dollars each semester they are undergraduates. That is a total of $4,944 over a period of four years. Also recall that not everyone finishes in eight semesters; additional semesters would make that number go even higher.

But surely the University has the students’ best interest at heart, and would only have benevolent interests at the core of this program. After all, that’s why we call her our alma mater, right?

Actually, if there were any benevolent intentions, they were grossly misconstrued, which leads me to the conclusion that there never were such notions. In 1996, when the University of Alabama was looking to salvage its failing on-campus food service, it turned to the Cornyn Fasano Group, a consulting group that specializes in the food industry, to draft a report detailing how to unload that cinderblock and generate revenue without breaking its nonprofit, government status. In turn, the Portland, Oregon-based group suggested two things: contracting out its food business, and requiring all students to pay an extra $200 a semester into a debit account (it became $300 in 2005 due to inflation).

In the appendices of the report, the firm explained that consumers (i.e. the students) would never purchase enough of the plans to make the system profitable, and only by making it a requirement for attendance to the institution would the University even come close to matching the cash flow that would reportedly be generated. In addition, the requirement turned the “product” into a “fee.”

With that report legitimizing the plan, the University began requiring the implementation of the Dining Dollars program in the 1996-1997 school year, and requiring first-year meal plans soon afterward.

So what is the result of this $5,000 “fee” to come to the University? There’s no doubt some families will be able to pay the additional bill, but it is also apparent that this will cause financial suffering for many students who cannot afford it. It is obvious the school’s priority is getting more and more revenue, even if that means future alumni will be forced to sign a mountain of promissory notes in the process.

So what does this mean for those who are forced to borrow this money? Essentially, it means that those individuals will pay double the money for half the benefits. This is a terrible deal that would never be tolerated in any private sector contract.

Don’t like the idea of being forced to pay an additional $5,000 on top of rocketing tuition costs just to come here? Not our problem, says the University of Alabama. Go find someplace else. In doing so, the administration is essentially telling the students to accept the shackles of debt or stay ignorant.

I sincerely believe that I am not the only person who realizes this injustice, but individuals expressing our concerns will not be able to cause change; I fervently believe that this needs to be a matter that the SGA undertakes in the coming years. This is a solid opportunity to truly bring productive change for students.

If we are to win the future on this campus, we must first begin by realizing that education must be attained with the most minimal debt load possible. With this realization, we can begin to act towards reducing that debt load, and this should be rooted in the fact that the mission of this institution is providing an education, not feeding us with an in loco parentis mentality. After all, I already have two wonderful parents who can help when I have a need. I do not require the assistance of a third.

Gregory Poole is a graduate student in metallurgical engineering. His column runs biweekly on Wednesdays.