McGill College college students decry ‘exorbitant’ price of on-campus meals

On Monday, Emily Hardie, a second-year McGill College scholar, bought a pre-packaged salad and an orange juice for lunch at one of many eating halls on her college’s campus. 

Tax free, it price her $21.75.

“That’s unacceptable to demand college students pay this quantity [for] each meal,” she stated. 

At residential eating halls and different meals places throughout campus, college students say the meals costs at McGill have gotten out of hand — $11 for a slice of pizza, $5.82 for a single granola bar and $15 for a 170-gram pack of raspberries are just some examples elevating alarm. 

Hardie stated as a first-year scholar, the price of meals on campus was so costly that she could not afford to eat three meals a day. 

“I might skip meals and I developed a kind of consuming dysfunction, so I needed to go to the physician,” she stated. 

Skipping or minimizing meals has develop into frequent amongst her friends, she stated, primarily due to the dear and necessary meal plan all undergraduate college students residing within the college’s kitchenless residences are pressured to purchase into — a plan that obliges them to buy their meals on campus or danger losing the cash. 

Hardie stated the meal plan’s base quantity solely covers one to one-and-a-half meals per day, forcing college students to empty their wallets to load up their playing cards ought to they need extra meals. 

She’s now a part of a brand new student-led marketing campaign known as Let’s Eat McGill, a bunch preventing for extra equitable entry to meals, sponsored meals from the college and an finish to the necessary meal plan. 

“Choices on campus shouldn’t be catered towards a sure larger revenue demographic. They needs to be accessible and reasonably priced to all college students,” she stated.

200% markup in comparison with supermarkets

Together with administrative charges, McGill’s meal plan prices $6,200 for the eight-month tutorial yr — $4,725 of which can be utilized to buy meals. Functioning like a debit card, funds are deducted from the stability every time meals is bought on campus. 

In accordance with the college’s meals and eating providers web site, this base quantity is “not designed to cowl the price of all of your meals for the whole tutorial yr.”

“More than likely, you’ll need to prime up or add meals {dollars} in some unspecified time in the future relying in your spending habits and meals preferences,” the location reads. 

Lola Milder, an undergraduate scholar at McGill and one of many founding members of Let’s Eat McGill, stated college students should not even be spending the meal plan’s base quantity on meals per college yr.

“It appears like a truth on campus that the eating halls are too costly. Its nearly like a joke,” she stated.

Whereas the college has attributed its climbing cafeteria costs to inflation, she stated direct comparisons with native grocery shops present giant disparities in costs. 

“Once we in contrast McGill’s costs to Provigo and different supermarkets … we discovered a 200 per cent markup or extra,” she stated. 

“It is actually exorbitant.” 

Milder stated college students are going to eating places off campus to hunt out cheaper choices. 

McGill to shift towards all-you-can-eat meal plan

In a press release Tuesday, McGill’s scholar housing and hospitality providers (SHHS) stated it is “delicate to the monetary challenges that many college students are dealing with,” however costs should cowl all operational bills, together with the rising price of meals resulting from inflation.

Nonetheless, it stated after an intensive overview and in response to suggestions from college students, the SHHS shall be transitioning away from the present necessary declining stability meal plan and implementing an all-you-care-to-eat (AYCTE) meal plan mannequin in residential eating halls beginning within the fall of 2023. 

“With the AYCTE meal plan, college students will be capable to select from all kinds of wholesome and native meals based mostly on their dietary wants and private preferences slightly than selecting meals based mostly on value,” the assertion reads. 

Nonetheless, Milder has her doubts, saying this isn’t essentially a fix-all resolution.

“I feel it will depend on value and the way that’s regulated,” she stated. “For instance, can college students take meals out or should they eat it within the eating corridor, and the way a lot does that plan price?”

She stated different prestigious universities within the nation, together with Concordia and the College of British Columbia, have stepped in to subsidize rising prices. 

“[McGill] could make a option to step in and subsidize scholar housing and hospitality providers with a purpose to shield college students from that inflation,” she stated, including she does not settle for the college’s resolution. 

For her half, Hardie would love McGill to work with college students to allow them to have some company over the meals programs on the college, together with costs and meals choices. 

She stated this may be achieved by funding student-run cafés or groceries — one thing Concordia does. 

“We’ve not seen any effort from [McGill], from the administration [or] from the board of governors to subsidize these prices,” she stated.

Let’s Eat McGill held an meeting on campus Tuesday night to talk to college students about meals insecurity in an effort to get them to take part within the marketing campaign.