The New York Times today published yet another contribution to the “evil colleges are dens of iniquity filled with heartless evildoers” genre. This time, colleges are blamed for pushing students into expensive meal plans and then sneakily using some of the funds for academic programs. Of course, the article’s author doesn’t deign to explain the desperation of state colleges that are simply not getting any money from the state and are driven into collapse by a growing bureaucratic apparatus they are forced to maintain with God knows what money.
Of course, this is not solely the journalist’s fault. Readers are eager for fresh contributions to the anti-college genre and will lap up any bit of idiocy that tells them what they want to hear. The actual reason for this college-hatred is, in reality, the general public’s unease with the new reality where everybody will need at least one college degree in order to be even marginally employable. This reality is not going away no matter how much one rants about meal plans, elitist professors, manipulated rape stats, etc.
Clarissa's Blog 
This time, colleges are blamed for pushing students into expensive meal plans and then sneakily using some of the funds for academic programs.
The real reason this is happening seems to be that colleges and universities are granting monopolies to private business food services who are free to put in dramatic price increases. Where I teach, we privatized the food service 15 or 20 years ago. For a few months, the quality of the food was better than before. Then it predictably began to decline as prices increased. Now, eating on campus is something like 50% more expensive than eating at restaurants off campus, in spite of the fact that the quality of the food on campus is much worse.
The university does not gain any benefit from this, it just lines the pockets of Aramark shareholders and executives.
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“The university does not gain any benefit from this”
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Of course, it does. These contracts mean income to universities. Why would the contracts be signed otherwise?
Purely for propaganda and public relations purposes, so that the University can claim that they are in the academic business, not the food service business.
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“Purely for propaganda and public relations purposes, so that the University can claim that they are in the academic business, not the food service business.”
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An additional benefit: If the food service is privatized, that means that the food service workers are employees of the food service and not the university. The university is not responsible for payroll, benefits, or working conditions. It helps insulate the university from lawsuits.
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