By using “meal equivalency” rates, students can use a meal designated in their meal plan to purchase food at places other than dining halls, including Port City Java, the Atrium, Hill of Beans and other cafés and eateries on campus.
For students on the meal plan, breakfast, lunch and dinner are worth, during their respective hours, $4.25, $5.00 and $5.25. Meals at a dining hall cost $5.50, $7.00 and $7.50 respectively for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with students purchasing with an All-Campus card paying $.50 less per meal.
“When you swipe a meal at the dining hall, it’s a delicate balance of business,” Jennifer Gilmore, the manager of marketing and communications for University Dining, said.
According to Gilmore, part of the disparity arises from the difference in production costs.
“It costs us more to feed people at [other] places than at a dining hall,” she said. “So we transfer basically the value of the dining hall to the quick-service.”
The apparent disparity between the worth of a walk-in meal and an equivalent amount somewhere else is more complicated.
“The walk-in price at the dining hall is set for people who normally are not a committed part of the student dining program,” Randy Lait, the director of Dining, said. “Students on campus meal plans can pay even less through the value of the meal plan.”
With a block meal plan, students pay between $6.34 and $6.65 per meal, while on the meals-per-week system, prices range from $4.48 to $5.72 per meal. The equivalency rate tries to match that worth.
“That’s why lunch costs a visitor paying cash [$7], but the equivalency rate is [$5] for students on meal plans,” Lait said.
According to Lait, a survey of other schools in the UNC System found that N.C. State had the best rate for every meal, coming second only to ECU’s $5.35 breakfast. Other schools, such as UNC-Chapel Hill, charged as much as $9.65 for dinner.
The equivalency plan is also unique, according to Gilmore. Of schools who do offer similar programs, the rates are much lower, such as the $2 to $3 ECU students are offered.
“It’s a luxury to even be able to [have our equivalency plan],” Gilmore said.
The limit continues to frustrate students such as Julian Dalton, a freshman in chemical engineering, who said the system does not help students as much as it could.
“It’s not convenient to go to a dining hall if you wake up late,” he said.
Dalton said the restrictive price keeps him from purchasing an equivalently fulfilling meal.
“You can’t run on just coffee. You need a muffin to go with it,” he said.
Mary Maclean, a freshman in biomedical engineering, said he has had similar problems with the equivalency rate.
“You have to work to hard to get more than two objects,” she said. “The items should cost less or the rate should be higher.”
Lait said he has heard similar complaints, particularly with the addition of Port City Java, where some premium items exceed the equivalency rate, and said Dining is always looking to improve its services.
“We’ll work on this in the spring semester to see if we can find ways to offer items that better fit our equivalency,” he said. “We appreciate student input.”
