College Food Prices Rip off Students
By: Mustafe Abdulahi
Staff Writer
Despite the rising costs of college tuition, student stores still overprice food products, leaving students without transportation with a dip in their budget.
Prices of goods at college convenience stores tend to cost more than those found off-campus. This begs the question: are colleges exploiting students by establishing such high prices? According to a study done by Harvard University, up to half of the nation’s college students might struggle with food insecurity, meaning that they often do not have access to food.
This problem transcends geography, as well as community colleges, universities, private and public, elite and non-elite. Researchers still cannot measure the full consequences of such rampant food insecurity, but they have linked it to lower graduation rates.
Not every student has access to transportation, leaving them with little choice but to fork out more money on food, drinks, and other items in their on-campus food stores, especially when faced with time constraints.
For example, Anthony Hill, a second-year student at Green River College, explained that the prices of the student store should not be as overpriced considering the significant rise in tuition as of late.
“I feel like everything in the student store is extremely overpriced, to the point where I’ve considered risking my parking spot to go to the 7-Eleven down the street to go get a bigger Gatorade bottle for like a dollar less,” Hill said.
Meanwhile, other students do not have that luxury to drive down to the 7-Eleven. Take freshman Oni Everett for example. He said that the prices were especially steep when you do not have a car to leave campus.
“It’s especially difficult because I can’t really leave campus if I’m hungry. I’m pretty much stuck here to pay for things knowing in the back of my mind that I’m getting ripped off, but out of convenience, you know, I just kind of had to accept it,” Everett said.
While prices in on-campus food stores tend to be overblown, students can look for alternative solutions to cut down their expenses.
Even if students do not have access to transportation, there some ways to save some while living on campus. One way to save on expenses is to schedule time out of the weekends to take a bus or ride with a friend to a grocery store with affordable prices where they can shop for the week.
Another way is to get basic ingredients and prepare meals in order to save time and money that would otherwise be spent on overpriced campus goods.
Photo Cred: Elsa Finkbeiner
