Unfortunately, I rarely find myself inclined or able to attend breakfast or late-night on most days. Not wanting to waste money, I contacted Residence Life at the beginning of this semester and asked to cancel my meal plan and pay on a meal-by-meal basis. As it turns out, you are not allowed to cancel your meal plan for the second semester, and, although in the first few days you are permitted to switch to a different one, there is no alternative that provides only lunch and dinner; I ended up keeping my plan and paying for eight or nine meals a week that I’m not eating.

So what exactly do I get out of locking myself into a contract with Sodexo? For the most part, the price of any given meal plan is not itemized, so to answer this question, I meticulously counted every meal included with each meal plan. This is not a trivial undertaking; there are many exceptions throughout the year, such as dining halls closing early before three-day weekends or opening with dinner after holiday breaks. I have tried to tally accurately, but take these figures as approximations.

Using these data and information available on the Hospitality Services website, I computed the per-meal cost for each of the six plans, assuming the costs are in a constant ratio. Based on my calculations, I’m losing $5.57 for each breakfast and $6.46 for each late-night I miss, or around $1,417 on the year. On the other hand, if I paid menu price for the meals I do eat, I’d be saving $1,378.

To be fair, the meal plans actually do save you money—if you eat each meal allotted, you can end up saving $300–2,300, depending on which plan you subscribe to. But you could easily subsist on home-cooked meals and the culinary offerings of the Capital District for the same price, and with a great deal more variety than the tortellini- and marble cake-filled menu of Russell Sage Dining Hall.