Are College Meal Plans Ripping Off Students?

An investigation by The New York Times reveals that some colleges are using required meal plans in ways that anger many students. In some cases, colleges are making the meal plans required even of commuter students who don't eat on campus. In other cases, money from the meal plans appears to be subsidizing things other than students' food -- typically as part of large, multiyear contracts with food service providers. Colleges defend the arrangements as providing key resources for the institutions.