Illustration by Jaime Hebel.

Starting this fall semester, food in WashU’s three main dining halls has been more expensive than in previous years. Prices at the Bear’s Den (BD), Danforth University Center (DUC), and Village are so high that first-years cannot afford two average meals a day no matter what plan they are on. 

For example, WashU’s staple food of chicken and french fries— the half and half— costs 1.49 more points than it did last year. These price raises are just one of many concerns about dining that students have had this semester, including shorter dining hours, a lack of food options, and the mislabeling of items.

Student Life looked into the price points and nutritional value of a range of different food options to examine whether it’s feasible for students to eat multiple meals a day while using a WashU dining plan. All WashU students are required to purchase at least a minimum meal plan each year.

In a survey about dining prices conducted by Student Life, 89.1% of 221 student responses rated their satisfaction with WashU’s dining prices as lower than 5/10. Planning meals on this strict budget has taken a noticeable toll on students’ physical and mental health, as demonstrated in the graphs below. 

The University announced many changes in their Sept. 3 email about Dining Services to address the concerns of students, and their Sept. 10 follow-up highlights those changes. While Dining Services stated in the first email that meal plan value was being investigated, no changes to dining prices or portion sizes have since been announced.

In an email to Student Life, Raven Lumpkins — Director of Marketing and Communications for University Services — said, on behalf of Dining Services, that the Dining Services team sees the existing price adjustments as “necessary.” 

“Like many others, we’ve been impacted by inflation, resulting in necessary price adjustments,” Lumpkins said, “Rising food supply costs have contributed to this, but our focus remains on providing a high-quality, diverse dining experience.”

Throughout this article, a meal is being defined as an entree and one a la carte side at one of WashU’s three main dining halls — BD, the DUC, and the Village. 

With this definition, the average cost of two meals — barring any fountain drinks, snacks, or desserts — is 28.02 points. If you include an average breakfast, it becomes 37.52 points. According to the University’s own suggested balance sheet, which guides students on weekly meal point use, the Platinum Plan affords students 26.37 per day.

Meal Point Calculator

Created by Zach Cohn. Inspired by William Chen.

Our calculations in this article start Aug. 26, the first day of classes, and run through Dec. 18, the last day of exams (for a total period of 115 days including breaks). This is four days less than the University’s balance sheet, which is why the numbers do not line up.

These average prices mean that sophomores and upperclassmen who have the Platinum Plan (the most expensive plan) and leave for both Fall and Thanksgiving Break will just barely be able to scrape by on two average meals a day, with six days to spare.

Because meal plans do not account for the required first-year orientation, Bear Beginnings — which runs for seven days — a first-year cannot afford two average meals a day, even though Student Life’s survey indicated that first-years are major buyers of the most pricey meal option: the Platinum Plan. 

However, Dining Services told Student Life that even though not all meal plans were designed for three meals a day, the Platinum plan should be able to achieve it.

“Our research shows that students can meet the equivalent of three meals per day with the Platinum meal plan,” Dining Services said, “Some students may choose or need to supplement their meals depending on their energy requirements, and we’re here to help them identify how to do so both on and off campus.”

Meals at WashU often have low calorie counts. This means that students often run a calorie deficit using their meal plan, as WashU meals often do not reach the 2,400-2,600 calories per day for inactive males or the 1,800-2,000 calories per day for inactive females, recommended by the U.S. government. 

For moderately active individuals, these calorie recommendations climb to 2,800 for males and 2,200 for females. 

The highest-calorie two-meal days possible at BD that the Platinum Plan can afford reach around 1,900 calories. For example, a high-calorie Bistro Grill burger order for lunch with a high-calorie Semolina pasta order for dinner reaches this number of calories while costing 26.61.

Thus, with careful planning, two-meal days on the Platinum Plan might reach minimum calorie recommendations. However, two average meals a day will generally not meet the recommended calorie intake, and it is possible to miss the calorie mark even with three meals. 

For example, a basic Farmhouse Grill breakfast from BD, a Neapolitan pizza and side salad for lunch from the DUC, and a Build Your Own Salad for dinner gives around 1600 calories while costing 36.15.

A meal consisting of pizza and salad costs 14.08, which is more than half of what many students with Platinum Plans, the most expensive plan, are allotted per day. (Quinn Moore | Student Life)

This means that, even if the meal plans could provide two or three meals a day, a student would still need to plan out their meals carefully to achieve recommended calorie levels. This planning is made more difficult due to calorie numbers often not being immediately apparent at these locations. For example, calorie counts do not appear on the menus.

A dining menu in the Danforth University Center. (Quinn Moore | Student Life)

In their dining update email, Dining Services identified the “availability of healthy options” as an issue and has, over the past week, worked to solve this. For instance, a new produce bar with fruits and vegetables has opened in Paws & Go, where a candy station replaced the salad bar that was there last year. There have been no announced updates to portion sizes for meals.

Calories are not the only aspect of dining that may be difficult to understand. The University has also become increasingly less specific in their meal plan descriptions.

For instance, in December of 2023, less than a year ago, the University stated that “our data shows that the Platinum Plan can provide the equivalent of three meals per day.” 

As of September of 2024, any reference to number of meals in the meal plan descriptions has disappeared entirely. The Platinum Plan’s description now states that it is “ideal for: students who live on-campus, enjoy regular dining in all residential locations, and occasionally explore dining in retail locations.”

Similarly, in December of 2023, the Silver Plan was described as “great for the student who plans to eat lunch and dinner in Bear’s Den, the DUC, or the Village while enjoying the occasional venture to explore a dining location not among the big three.”

As of September of 2024, the Silver Plan is now described as “a great plan for students wanting to eat their lunches and dinners during the week on campus…Ideal for: students residing on or off-campus who plan to eat various meals on campus throughout the week.”

Dining Services said that this change in meal plan descriptions was done to more accurately describe the meal plans and to “emphasize flexibility and diverse dining options.” They stated that the meal plan descriptions would be revised to “reintegrate [the previous] language” by Monday, Sept. 16 — however, as of the date of this article’s publication, these changes have not been made.

“The [current language] responded to feedback that previous descriptions didn’t fully match students’ experiences,” Dining Services said. “Rather than focusing on the number of meals, the new descriptions help students choose a plan that fits their needs. This change did not imply the Platinum Plan no longer supports three meals per day.”

Even before this updated, less-specific language, parents found meal plan descriptions confusing. One parent, Danielle Weksler, explained the difficulty she experienced when trying to decide on which plan to buy for her sophomore for their first year. 

“I do not think WashU was transparent about the plans. They make it sound like there is availability that does not exist in reality,” Weksler said. “And the prices are insane, so what your kid needs does not really line up [with what the meal plans offer].” 

Weksler ended up buying her student the lowest-allowed meal plan for first-years, the Silver Plan. When her student ran out of points before the end of the 2023-24 year, they bought meal points from other students at a discounted rate. 

Meal plan value is also affected by meal points not being 1:1 with dollars, as less points are received than dollars paid. For the Platinum Plan, one meal point is worth $1.28. So, when a student purchases a meal using meal points, the equivalent price of that meal in dollars is higher than the point price listed on the menu.

Since one meal point is equivalent to $1.28, the basic Bistro Burger listed at 10.99 points actually costs students $14.09. For reference, a local McDonald’s sells their Big Mac for $6.39. Alternatively, this ratio can be thought of as an $885 charge to convert dollars to meal points. As meal plans are required, this charge cannot be avoided, though it is smaller for Apartment and Off-Campus meal plans.

When asked about this, Dining Services told Student Life that the extra fee is to “incorporate overhead costs for maintaining facilities.” 

Although Dining Services is working to improve dining on campus, the start of the semester has not gone smoothly. When looking at the high prices combined with the insufficient calories and lack of transparency, many students who responded to Student Life’s survey provided negative words. 

Word cloud created through commonly used words in a Student Life survey of 221 WashU students.

How we did this investigation

To gather information on dining prices, I gathered data from BD, the DUC, and the Village on various days and regularly visited to observe any menu option or price changes. While I tried to gather information on previous dining prices and dining hall hours, Dining Services did not have any of that data from past years. 

Notably, there are many popular campus food locations not included in this article. Paws & Go and Millbrook Market were not included since they are not traditional dining halls. Ibby’s and “Premium Proteins” from Bistro Grille were not included so as not to skew the data unfairly. All retail dining locations — such as Corner 17 — were excluded since they are not run by Sodexo. 

As part of our investigation, we created a survey that was eight-questions-long, and we received 221 responses, 38.5% of whom had the Platinum Plan, 20.4% the Silver Plan, 16.3% the Off Campus Plan, 11.3% the Gold Plan, 10% the Bronze Plan, and 3.6% the Apartment Plan. 50.2% of the respondents were first-years.

To find the average cost of a meal at WashU, I averaged the cost of every entree in BD, the DUC, and the Village (ignoring duplicate food options at different locations). Then, I averaged the cost of every side in these locations, accounting for combo packages. Some entrees include sides, but note that these entrees typically have smaller portion sizes, so an a la carte side is still added on in our calculations.

Next, I added the average cost of an entree with the average cost of a side to get the average cost of a meal, and doubled it to get two meals a day. For the three-meal day, I simply added the average cost of all the breakfast entrees plus the average cost of all the breakfast sides. 

To calculate how many days short the meal plans fell on two-meal and three-meal days, I used this formula: (# of days on campus) – [(Total points of meal plan)/(Average point cost of two meals or three meals a day)]. 

While Dining Services has a suggested balance list, we decided to make our own calculator because their sheet does not count Bear Beginnings for first-years or Thanksgiving and Fall Break. The calculator divides the number of points for your meal plans by the number of days you are on campus, and tells you how many meal points you should be at. 

To find the calorie counts for meals, I used Sodexo’s own menu, which features calorie counts for certain items. In order to find past descriptions of meal plans by Dining Services, I used the WayBack Machine/Internet Archive to visit versions of the website in past years.

To get the $1.28:1 point ratio, I divided the cost ($4,023) by the number of points (3,138). To find the dollar price point of an item, I multiplied the listed price by $1.28 dollars/point to get the equivalent dollar price.