Editorial | A double standard

Freshman students have long complained about having to purchase unnecessarily large mandatory meal plans.

So when 107 freshmen agreed to donate their leftover meals -- all 5,151 of them - to charity, it seemed like a great way to help out the community.

After all, if these students have to pay for meals they aren't going to use, at least they should have some say in how those meals are spent, right?

Not according to Dining Services.

Instead, Penn Dining and Aramark, the company which provides Penn's food services, balked at the idea, essentially putting students in a catch-22.

For years, officials have told frustrated freshmen that the best way to get the full value of their dining plans is to use all their meals. Then, when a couple of students came along with some innovative ideas on how to use those meals, officials suddenly changed their tune.

But forcing incoming students to spend hundreds of dollars on meal plans, while refusing to give them any say in how to use their leftover meals isn't just a double standard. It's also poor service.

Unfortunately, as most students know, those two words have come to define the residential dining experience here at Penn.

Dining Services should give its policies a second look. Either let students purchase the smaller meal plans available to upperclassmen, or create ways for students to use their leftover meals for charitable purposes.

Aramark officials can't have their cake and eat it too.

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