If you plan to live in the dorms next year, chances are you have noticed that meal plan prices are rising.

According to Joshua Johnson, assistant director for marketing and public relations of housing and dining, “Housing & Dining must create costs (rates) that allow the department to reach their expenses,” adding that there has been an increase in food prices as well as minimum wage rates.

There are many reasons behind why a student is left with disposable money in their meal plans at the end of the week, whether they mean to or not.

“Our variety of meal plans should give residents the option to eat balanced meals throughout the week,” Johnson said.

It is more than likely that students will feel the need to use up their meal plan if given better dorm food options. There is nothing but fried foods just about anywhere you go, so it’s hard to understand why they consider the meals “balanced.” What about more healthier choices? More vegetarian choices?

“The food in the dorms isn’t that great,” said freshman hospitality major Mallory Weathers.

You can stock up on things like celery and carrots or cereal at the end of the week, but then again the fridges in the dorms are quite small, especially if you have a roommate to share the space with. The only place that offers easy-to-store foods such as chips or pretzels is the Trident in Neptune. Most of the food that you may stock up on anywhere else is likely to go bad within days.

Many students do not have the time to stop and get food at each meal, so instead they purchase on-the-go packs of snacks at the store. For instance, I carry around 100 calorie packs or a Special K bar in case I’m hungry and don’t have time to stop and grab food somewhere in the dorms. The school does not offer either one of those, nor anything else similar, for students to purchase with the use of meal plan dollars. However, these types of foods can be purchased in the various vending machines located around campus. Some take money while others take Huskie Bucks.

They should consider having one or two in each building take meal plan dollars.

Some might think it’s good to be prepared for the unexpected. If, for some reason, you spend more than usual and don’t have enough meal plan dollars left to purchase food, you can still use Huskie Bucks or even ask a friend with extra meal plan dollars as back-up. There is no use having extra money that literally ends up going to waste. Eventually that leftover money will build up causing one to realize their parents essentially paid the school an unnecessary extra $1,000.

“I have the $55 plan and on average I have about $20 left over every week,” Weathers said.

Why do we not have roll over dollars? Huskie Bucks roll over each semester so why not allow meal plan dollars to roll over each week as well? That would guarantee that students will never fall short of meal plan dollars and always be able to purchase food when needed or desired.

“I absolutely hate the fact that any of the money you do not use just gets funneled into the school’s pocket; they don’t even give you some sort of refund at the end of the year,” said sophomore psychology major Daniel Karabatsos. “I think that maybe there should be a different range of meal plan values because not everyone enjoys this food here and may not use all their money each week even if they have the lowest plan.”

It’s not necessarily about lowering meal plan options; it’s about offering more convenient places or foods that can be purchased with meal plan dollars. If not that, then increase the quality of food to make using a meal plan more desirable.