You will be pleased to know that your average college cafeteria is not your parents’ college cafeteria. Today, college meal plans allow you to choose fewer meals on campus or more meals on campus and offer you a variety of choices from cafes and fast food concessions to hot meals, healthy meals-on-the-go and even meal credits you can use at local restaurants.
Be sure to balance your college food consumption with plenty of exercise (even if you are just walking around the track or across the campus) because a lot of students gain weight (about 5-7 lbs) their first year in college.
It is part of the cycle of eating more food in the dorm rooms and in the cafeteria as a comfort mechanism. Be sure you try to balance the ‘grab it and go’ foods with a good balanced meal in the cafeteria that includes vegetables and starches and protein. Some schools even serve prime rib these days, so you don’t have to turn up your nose at those college meals any more!
Meal plans are typically administered through your student card, which you use to grab credits from your meal plan, each time you buy something in the café or cafeteria. No paper or coin money changes hands, although cafeterias usually do allow the public to pay in cash if they are visiting a student on campus. When you tour the college of your choice, you are likely to find a Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Burger King or other chain store on the premises in a café or other eatery. You will also find ethnic and exotic food selections in most college cafeterias. The choices are definitely better than they were 20-30 years ago!
A recent online survey of college students revealed their favorite college cafeterias and the schools with the best meal plans and chefs:
Stanford Dartmouth Scripps
Wheaton College of the Atlantic Northwestern
Smith Mt. Holyoke Harvey Mudd
Hampshire UCLA Cornell
San Diego State Middlebury, VT Bryn Mawr
Yale RPI Wichita State
University of Southern California
Metropolitan State University
So, if you just can’t stand to eat bad food, you might want to start with this list of schools to see if any of them meet your financial and curriculum requirements. At least you will know that the food is good!