On February 6, 2014, it was requested to add a customized dining plan option in place of the current dining plan option, which has a fixed number of meals and dining dollars that must be used by the end of the semester. Students that have bought the dining plans are dissatisfied for many reasons. First, freshmen and sophomores living on campus are required to buy an expensive meal plan that is over $1200 and are restricted to the times and places where they are allowed to eat. In addition, this particular meal plan comes with a limited amount of dining dollars and students are unable to buy snacks or drinks for an entire semester. Lastly, students living off campus are restricted to buying dining dollars at a cost of $600, $800, and $1000, which are transferred to the student account for meal and snack purchases. In both instances, whether a student lives on campus or off campus, meals or dining dollars cannot be transferred onto the next semester. .
For this reason, many students find themselves losing money that could've been saved if TAMU had the option of creating a customized dining plan. To perform this research, I devised a survey to distribute to TAMU students and faculty via email. In addition, I also held a few personal interviews to gain a better insight about the current dining option. I found that more than half of the students approved of the idea of having a customized dining option. Furthermore, I found that the faculty was aware of the students' dissatisfaction towards the current dining options and are actively trying to find new dining options for the following school year. However, the administration of the University had not decided if they would use a customized dining option or modify the current dining option. Lastly, I found that the faculty and students believed the customized dining plans would not effect the crowding of dining halls if the customized dining option were implemented.
