Food for thought

When it comes to food, college students are cheap, and rightfully so. There's tuition to pay, the cost of car insurance, the monthly rent and the price of books, so the last thing we want to do is spend more than we have to on a slice of pizza.

On campus, though, where it can often feel like our wallets are being pinched by the cost of mozzarella sticks, there are few options for the hungry other than dining halls, food courts, and caf?(c)s run by Campus Dining & Shops.

For every student who ever thought they might be getting overcharged for food, the truth might not support the speculation. UB, however, has hardly been forthcoming enough to know one way or the other.

In the past five years, the average price of food here has gone up. Mitch Green, the executive director of Campus Dining, acknowledged as much during a recent Faculty Senate meeting. Evidence of higher prices can also be seen in financial reports for campus dining: from 2001 to 2006, revenue from sales went up $3 million although there was no change in spending on the cost of goods.

Aubrey Balcom, former president of the Faculty Student Association, which runs Campus Dining, alleges that Green's organization is charging and receiving more but purchasing nothing more for students.

"For each dollar you spend at an FSA operation you get relatively less as compared to previous years," said Balcom, a senior who resigned from his position in 2005, citing financial practices he disagreed with.

The current FSA president, Leslie Meister, who is also the vice president-elect for the Student Association, declined to comment on the issue.

As for Green, he says the prices can be blamed on rising costs to the food service industry.

Rising food costs at other schools appear to corroborate Green's claims. Jill Irvin, associate director of Campus Dining Services at Ohio State University, said rising costs of everything from gasoline to steel have led to price increases at her school too.

"Everybody's costs continue to go up," she said. "Everybody has labor costs that go up, raw material increases... All those will impact how much we pay for a case of apples."

At UB in the last year, the cost of goods has actually decreased from $4.5 to $4.2 million, while administrative expenses hiked up about $1 million. Balcom said he sees a disturbing trend between the two statistics.

"Students that already have to take loans out to pay for school and come to UB for a good value on education, pay excessively for food so that a few higher-level managers in FSA make a very good living," Balcom said.

Statistics alone, however, do not mean that Green and Campus Dining are necessarily doing wrong.

"There are no missing numbers," Green said, adding that the extra $1 million went towards salaries, wages, taxes, benefits, office supplies and other costs. "We're an open book."

"Through good management we were able to keep our cost of goods relatively stable," Green added.

Rich Neumann, the head of dining services at Ohio University, said most students don't understand how the food industry works.

Are students overcharged?

"I don't think there's any truth to it," Neumann said. "I can think back 20 years to when I was a student and it was the same thing. But when I got into this business, I saw where the money goes."

"We get criticized very heavily by students," he added. "Our costs are very high, but what we're required to give back is also very high."

Green also appears to be wary of student perception. He has historically been one of the hardest administrators at UB to get a hold of, especially to talk about campus dining finances.

Neumann said he's been burned so many times by his campus's newspaper that he only answers questions sent in by e-mail, which is exactly what Green asked for when contacted for this story.

Irvin, who's been in the campus food industry for 20 years, said she also doesn't think students are overcharged.

"I truly don't believe, and I've worked in four different institutions, that you're overcharged," Irvin said. "However, what that means to you and what it means to me, and what's involved in that charging, there's a difference in opinion."

Sure, students can eat cheaper off campus, she continued, but that also means an apartment diet of PB&J and mac and cheese.

"You can also make it yourself as opposed to using a union staff person to do it," Irvin said, pointing to the increasing financial burden of labor costs.

Both Irvin and Neumann said the prices at their schools have been going up at an annual rate of around three percent. In a sandwich or a smoothie, choosing a cheaper type of bread or lesser quality fruit can offset that increase, as can decreasing portion sizes.

Campus Dining & Shops doesn't seem to keep track of exactly how much a burger was today versus 2001, but students have anecdotal memories.

"I remember lunch used to be five bucks during my freshman year," said Mark Umstead, a first-year grad student in his fifth year at UB. "It's at least $8 now, and that sucks."

According to Green's report at the Faculty Senate meeting last Wednesday, Campus Dining has plans to renovate dining halls in Ellicott, but none to reduce meal prices anywhere on campus.

UB, it seems, if anything else, fits right in with the rest of the college nation, forever at odds with its food service administrators.

As far back as 1969, The Spectrum covered a task force of students and faculty gathering to protest the rising prices of food.

The headline? "FSA's at it again."