Shane Rossi
At the fundamental level of human existence, eating is essential. Binghamton University is struggling to meet this basic need. The meal plan has failed to properly service the students, and instead has been used to benefit Sodexo and the University. Although their mission is education, in reality, they behave more like a corporation. Under the current system, students living in on-campus communities have to pay three thousand dollars for the meal plan. However, they are only given a measly 1000 dollars to spend. If you were to spend only 10 dollars a day (which no one does) you would still run out in 100 days, which is before the end of final exams. This means endlessly begging your parents or friends to help add to your balance, living off vending machines, or going to Walmart. Is this right?
But it gets worse. The reduction in food prices that they boast of is laughable. Sure, you can live off tomato soup and bring your own water bottle and only spend 93 cents. But who is actually doing that? If you buy the ready-made meals and a drink, it will cost around 6-8 dollars. And it’s even more if you purchase the commuter meal plan. So to sum up the costs, you pay 3000 dollars to get only 1000, the food is unaffordable with this balance, and you will likely run out halfway through the semester or even earlier in some cases. This is unacceptable.
It doesn’t have to be this way. In SUNY Cortland, if you pay a flat price of 3500 dollars for their meal plan, you get unlimited swipes to a buffet-style food area and even get 450 dining dollars back. Now this is still not great, but compared to Binghamton, it’s night and day. And don’t even get me started about the quality. There is little to no variety, the food is boring and terrible, and nobody would pay for it if they did not live on campus.
Where does Binghamton University get its dining services? They contract a company called Sodexo which offers dining services for various public facilities such as hospitals and universities. Binghamton University upcharges students and then pays some of the money to this private company before pocketing the rest. It’s a pretty profitable business. While President Stenger has been collecting grants from the state and federal governments, students are begging their parents at three o’clock in the morning for just 100 more dollars in their balance so that they can make it another week. Binghamton’s dining services have especially failed the Jewish community with their meal plan options, with kosher items costing as much as 7-11 dollars per meal. That is simply not sustainable.
I have explained this issue to many people on campus, and every single person has agreed with me that this is a serious problem. How many students have gone hungry because they didn’t want to run out of balance? How many students have gone to the vending machine because their credit card would be charged double at the dining hall? One is too many. Parents should not have to carry the burden and costs of the dining services especially after it’s already paid for. But unfortunately, most do. Students are even taking out LOANS to get more food. This is out of control.
Binghamton University was founded as a place where people come to pursue a higher education and become productive members of society. At the fundamental level, the taxpayers have trusted our state government to support the SUNY system so we can build New York and the United States into both a prosperous state and nation. But right now, this is not happening. Binghamton University has instead become Binghamton Incorporated, a powerful machine that puts financial gain over the needs of its students.
Now, you may be asking yourself why any of this matters. Sure, the meal plan is terrible. But what can we do about it? We don’t set the costs to attend the university. Yes, this may be true. But without students, and without popular support, not one cart will move, not one teacher will teach, and not one dollar will be spent. That’s why I have decided to begin the formation of the Meal Plan Coalition. This will be a broad group of clubs, organizations, and students with the purpose of pressuring the university to change its policy. And I hope after reading this, you join me to stop this insanity. Here is the plan: First, we will form this organization with the support of many groups and students on campus. Once we have centralized that, we will hold a rally in the Union hall. There, we will discuss everything said here and more in front of a live audience. It will be very difficult to ignore. From there we can build a movement and implement change step by step until an agreement is reached.
The test of a leader is not what he says but what he does. A leader must serve the people, not the other way around. The bureaucracy in Binghamton runs very deep. Entrenched power and mediocrity have affected every aspect of the University. While President Stenger has been driving around in a golf cart, students have had holds placed on their accounts, forced to either take out loans or drop out entirely. We can’t hope that Governor Hochul will do anything about it. The New York State government is even more entrenched in corruption than the ones that exist in SUNY schools. This is why we have to build a broad movement focused on making the university more affordable and liveable, relaxing the burdens of loans and credit card debt that many students, including those reading this, have had to deal with.