The Original Sin of Stanford Dining

The Original Sin of Stanford Dining

The recommendations for improving the cost and quality of campus meals includes an interesting history of student dining at Stanford, and the reasons the campus shifted from a free-market model to a centralized approach in the 1920s.

"As one student summarized last year in a Daily article, the meal plan is 'designed to edge people out of breakfast, [make students] eat [dinner] absurdly early' and to force them to satiate hunger at Late Night, giving even more money to the University. Meal plans run students $6,169 per year; meanwhile, meal plans at nearby Santa Clara University cost 13.5 percent less, only $5,436 per year.

"Stanford is in dire need of the forces of competition in its food supply to spur innovation and lower costs. How? Throw out the mandate for students living on campus to buy meal plans. Remove the outmoded limitations on food providers, like the prohibition of food trucks. Shut down Stanford Dining, the food service arm of Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE), and simply lease dining hall space to third party vendors."