STLCC-Meramec cafeteria lacks affordable, nutritious choices.
By: Victoria Barmak
-Staff Writer-
Leaves are beginning to turn colors; air is crispier. The seasons are changing. What is not changing are the prices for the grub served in the cafeteria.
Season after season, like zombies, students are flooding into the cafeteria for pizza or burgers and fries. While they know better, they still do not choose options that are more nutritious. Could it be the affordability of those “food” items that appeal to the students?
To buy a real meal comprised of fish/chicken/meat and two hot sides, students should be prepared to shell out around $8-9. That may not seem like a lot, but when one realizes we are talking about a community college setting, where one course credit is $94, $9 for lunch is obscene. Think about it: $9 is about 10 percent of one credit. Not a lot? Let us compare Meramec’s credit hour to meal price ratio with another St. Louis University (SLU). According to http://SLU.edu, one undergraduate credit at SLU is $1,215. And what is 10 percent of that? You got it. 120 buckaroos. Puts it in perspective, does it not?
What about those students who come to school early in the morning and have classes throughout the day? They have no choice but to schlep around campus with a cooler. They need snacks, lunch and possibly dinner. If they were to buy those meals at the cafeteria, they would spend approximately $20 per day.
There is usually a “student lunch special”: chicken fingers, fries and soda; or burger, fries and soda; or pizza and soda. You get the point. That is not brain fuel; it is a recipe for disaster. It is unclear how a student can function in a classroom after eating fats and carbs that offer little nutritional value and leave your tummy rumbling after a few hours.
The bottom line is, Mermec’s cafeteria seems to forget that Meramec is a community college. This is not a private university where $8 for lunch is a bargain. This is a place where for a lot of students $8 is probably a daily meal allowance. Come on. We can do better than that.
