If I understand the American system, there is pressure from parents as well. The students might not want the college to be so involved in their student life, but many parents would be unwilling to allow their children to attend an institution that is not highly focused on keeping them safe, to the point of treating adults as children. Rules requiring you to live on campus for the first 1–2 years, college-organized sober social activities, mental-health personnel on university staff, etc. is all meant to say “See, parents, your kid is safe with us.”
We can idealize what people should do, or we can work with what they can do. Not both.
This is not the point of the parent post. Extravagant expenditures on dining halls do little for safety. Competitive sports are a net negative for safety.
A large number of european (as well as japanese) cities are very safe. Also, university students are adults.
Parents are worried that their children might struggle to nourish themselves without the college or university seeing to their meals. Once all institutions have come to offer some form of meals on campus, individual institutions can then stand out from the crowd and attract students’ interest and parents’ approval by boasting more elaborating dining halls than other places.
> A large number of european (as well as japanese) cities are very safe.
Of course. But the issue here is that fretful American parents assume that anywhere their little darlings go off to will be unsafe, and their children shouldn't be left all on their own.
This has also to do with worker safety. University clinics also act as worker clinics for their own workers.
UCSD has a food bank on campus. Here's the math as to why:
Recommended daily dining dollar spend: $19
Breakfast: $3.95, "Bobcat Sandwich" Lunch: $5.25, Hamburger Dinner: $6.95, "Wok Entree"
This adds up to $16.15. That hamburger isn't very filling (between Whopper and Whopper Jr.), especially if you still operate on a teenaged metabolism. Add a fries to it, or do what I did and get a $2 salad from the salad bar. At 39¢ to the ounce, it's a cheaper option to maximize nutrition. Sometimes they have leftover salmon, flaked.
Okay, that's the expensive meal plan. You get five days of those, not seven. This is on the maximum dining dollar plan of $3800. You do not get a discount. One dollar in is one dollar spend.
But you can't afford the full plan. The other option – and you have to pick one, they're mandatory for on campus residents – is "worth" two meals a day, five days. You need to stretch it out.
It's not enough. If you don't do the accounting and budget beforehand, you will run out. If you don't supplement with ramen, you will run out. If you want a snack every now and then, you will run out.
Also, you don't have a kitchen in the residential halls. I hope you have a friend in an apartment or with access to the rare communal kitchens [1], since you otherwise can't cook, and must eat.
Oh, and as of winter quarter 2019, they started using scales to measure everything, down to the last noodle.
Panda Express doesn't do that, by the way. You get filling meals at only a slight premium, though I can't remember the price off the top of my head. The real value option is Subway, which costs $6.99 for the footlong of the day, including tax, and each is good for 1.5-2 meals with more or less balanced nutrition. If you somehow have a stove, a pre-packaged two-pack of Tikka Masala from Costco runs at around $3.50/meal, plus rice, and takes less time than the cross-campus dining hall roundtrip.
Fortunately, for 2019-2020, they increased the maximum package to 5100, which helps those who have financial aid. This doesn't reduce the daily cost, however.
People universally get the lowest dining plan allowed by HDH. It's just cheaper to go to the vendors, even with the invisible on-campus price hike.
[1]: The price of access to a communal res hall kitchen is fire alarms at 3 AM during finals week.