Across the country, people are feeling the financial strain as the price of food continues to skyrocket. Not surprisingly, many in the Tufts community have to choose between food and fun or between food and other necessities on a daily basis.
Tufts Community Union President Duncan Pickard is currently working with Dining Services to lighten the load on many of Tufts' already financially strapped students by offering more reasonably sized meals. These could fill the happy medium between paltry but cheap side dishes and expensive, gargantuan ones that often remain unfinished.
The Tufts campus and the surrounding areas offer a plethora of entertainment options. Exploring Boston, going to the movies and seeing concerts are all part of the college experience, and students are eager to take advantage of them. Dining Services sets its prices by looking at what other eateries in the area charge, and this is perfectly fair; some students are even willing to pay a little bit more for the additional convenience. The point is not to demand subsidized food but instead to make sure that the university is offering a broad range of options so that students across the board can leave dining facilities happy with both the quality of the food and the weight of their wallets.
With so many activities, from getting coffee with friends to taking a late-night study break, revolving around food that is becoming increasingly harder to afford, having some cheaper options would enable students to enjoy social benefits without having to worry about breaking the bank. Added variety would also allow them to eat a more healthy proportion of food that would leave them pleasantly satisfied rather than overly full or, conversely, only slightly less hungry than they were before.
Certainly, no amount of money saved on the occasional sandwich is going to amount to an expensive plane ticket or a sizable portion of tuition (at least not immediately), but it will make the small, everyday comforts like a cup of coffee or a show more accessible and students' overall campus experiences more enjoyable.
Also, part of what is making the recession so particularly insidious is that it at least marginally affects almost every aspect of life. Some price increases -- like those in public transportation, airfare and movie tickets -- are individually small, but the aggregate impact sneaks up on families in unexpected ways. At first, these added expenses seemed easy to internalize -- a few more cents here and there did not faze many people. But only when we started to realize that expenses around the margins, the ones that were previously written off as meaningless, added up did we really even start to comprehend the situation in which we now find ourselves.
Moving forward, one of the best things we can do is to take a step back and look at the larger picture, and that's what Dining Services and the Senate appear to be doing. If that means fighting the economic battles on the sandwich front, then so be it.
