Kevin Dillenburg

12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
Money and Meals: How College Students Should Spend Money on Food

In April of 2017, I spent more than $100 on food alone. At least every weekend, and

sometimes two or three times per weekend along with once during the week, I would munch on

food outside my house. This was mostly fast food, but did include sit-down restaurants as well.

And while I didnt continue to spend $100 per month during the summer, I did continue to love

to chow down on fast food. I never stopped loving the food, but starting in May, I did take much

more notice to the money I was spending on food and whether a tasty fast-food meal was worth

spending money as opposed to a free home-cooked meal courtesy of my mother. Ironically, I

have been thrown into the exact same situation in college, just with different fast food options

and a bigger bank account. In the first month and half of college, I have already managed to

spend around $350. While not all of this was on food, I can only assume the majority of it was.

This, along with my interest in economics, prompted me to develop the research question, "What

is the most valuable way a college student can spend money on food?".

In order to first solve the problem of how students can save money on food, we must first

define valuable. In economics terms, valuable can mean the same as marginal utility. In

economics, utility is the satisfaction or benefit derived by consuming a product; thus the

marginal utility of a good or service is the change in the utility from an increase in the

consumption of that good or service. (Wikipedia) Essentially, marginal utility is the happiness

one gets from performing a certain action. In our case, those actions will be the multiple ways a

student can different kinds of food both on and off campus, making the word valuable in our case

mean the most utility one can gain with every dollar spent. Next, we must look at the causes of

either why students dont have money to spend on food or why they are spending money they

could easily save. Through researching scholarly sources and conducting my own surveys of

Dillenburg 1
Kevin Dillenburg
12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
both students and dining hall managers, two clear causes have emerged as primary contributors

to the problem of students either not having money to spend on food or spending too much

money on food: food insecurity and the social class the student comes from.

The clearest way that a college student could save money on food is by eating at the

dining halls. Marquette University provides many different dining halls all with a variety of food

items available to eat, which can really help food insecure students by giving them plenty of food

without forcing them to spend money. The best alternative to the dining hall is groceries, as

buying these in bulk drives down the price and can also help keep a students habits healthy.

Methods of Research

In order to gain more information about the students themselves, I designed a survey

asking a few questions, including how much they spend on groceries and fast food, what they

thought of their colleges dining halls, and what social class they came from. The survey

(online) was then sent out to every floor in McCormick Hall via the Hall Senator who lives on

my floor. This survey did wonders in gathering valuable information.

I also attempted to interview a dining hall manager at Marquette, but he was unable to

give me many answers to questions I had because he was not associated with Sodexo, who runs

the kitchens of the dining halls at the university.

Finally, I did online research of a few scholarly sources on the topic of food insecurity.

In fact, in my academic conversations essay, I looked at how these sources interacted with one

another. All of these sources provided valuable information on a topic which was vital in the

conversation of college food spending, but one I knew little about.

How Big of an Impact Does Food Insecurity Have on Food Spending?

Dillenburg 2
Kevin Dillenburg
12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
Aside from collecting my own data, I conducted some research online to find if any

before me had done a similar investigation. While none have done the exact same one, I found a

lot of data on one of the problems students face with food spending: food insecurity. Food

insecurity was defined the same way by the three colleges that had done such research before:

Exists when there is limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or

limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.

One survey found a food insecurity rate of 21% at the University of Hawaii at Manoa,

much higher than the national average of 10.9% for U.S. households. Another found a rate of

58%, but it was discovered that this number combined both those actually suffering from food

insecurity and those simply at risk of food insecurity. Still, that number is far too high for even

students to be at risk of being food insecure and highlights the problem. The third survey taken,

this one at the University of Alabama, found a rate closer to the U.S. household average at

14.6%. No matter how big the margin, all three universities had higher rates than the average

U.S. household, which is a bad sign that Americas youth and future are struggling to find food.

It is something that must be fixedand can be with improved options, such as upgraded dining

halls, food banks, or student gardens.

Food Insecurity is a big reason why students try so hard not to spend money on food (but

sometimes are unable to because of lack of resources): they simply do not have the money to buy

a meal, so they depend on the college to give it to them. Their lack of funds is why they need the

most valuable meal of all. Since they have less dollars to spend than a richer student, they need

to squeeze every ounce of marginal utility they can out of those dollars. Not spending dollars is

a great move to get marginal utility, and they can get this free utility out of quality meals at

Dillenburg 3
Kevin Dillenburg
12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
dining halls. Either way, food insecurity severely hurts the amount of marginal utility a student

can acquire via food.

Is Social Class a Major Indicator of How Much a Student Spends on Food?

From the research I conducted, the short answer to this question is, No. In my survey, I

expected there to be a correlation between the higher class a student is and how much money

they spent on fast food. However, to add a headache to my data, that correlation was simply not

there. Some people from the middle-lower class spent decent amounts of money per week on

fast food, while some from the middle-upper spent almost no money on fast food. For this

particular cause, the survey proved nothing.

My research, however, yielded the correlation I was looking for. The survey that was

conducted at a midsize rural Oregon university took data on students whose family had an

income of >$15,000/yr and found that 78.5% of such students suffered from food insecurity.

Granted, this was the survey that included both students suffering and students at risk in their

final number, but it is still crystal clear to see how a lack of family income can harshly limit the

amount of money one can spend on food, and thus the amount marginal utility they can gain

from food.

Do Dining Halls Provide an Adequate Alternative?

In order to adequately answer this question, I decided to conduct my own research. Two

of the questions in my survey ask, Your residence dining hall provides adequate meal options

and convenience with the options, Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, and

Strongly Disagree, and Other dining halls on campus provide adequate meal options and

convenience with the same options as the first question.

Dillenburg 4
Kevin Dillenburg
12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
Between 24 responses combined from the two questions, there were only two answers of

Disagree and none for Strongly Disagree. Meanwhile, there were 2 answers for Strongly

Agree and an absurd 16 (2/3 of the poll) answers for Agree. This means that 75% of

respondents at least agreed that their dining hall provided adequate meal options and

convenience. Although there was certainly a limited number of responses, the data clearly shows

a trend that students think their dining hall is a viable option for eating.

Earlier in the semester, I performed a rhetorical analysis of a primary source that gave a

lot of information about Marquette dining. The site showed that Marquette tries to steer its

students away from spending money on food by giving many options on-campus. While the

source (Marquette University itself) may have been slightly biased, they certainly made it seem

like the dining halls were a truly viable option. They also have another site which I was

referenced to by the Executive Director of Student Affairs Operations when I was looking for

more information on the quality of the dining halls. This site in particular even includes the

menus at each site for each meal of the day, including late-night for the 24-hour dining hall at

McCormick Hall. The menu certainly shows McCormicks flexibility and diversity, as the lunch

menu on the date this is being written includes a total of 45 different items. Certainly, students

should be able to find a couple things they particularly like on a menu containing 45 different

items. Based on both of these sites, it certainly seems as though there are plenty of dining

options at Marquette

With that being said, few people are happy eating every meal of every day in the same

place and potentially eating the same meal every time. I certainly know I like some variety in

my meals. Even with the different dining halls on campus and the different options those halls

have, dorm food is dorm food at the end of the day. People, including me, will look elsewhere

Dillenburg 5
Kevin Dillenburg
12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
for food at some point. However, it does seem as though dining halls are a very viable option for

students to eat at consistently to save them from spending money on food.

What are good alternatives to the Dining Halls?

Provided that dining halls are a poor option for a college student, groceries can be a solid

alternative. Fortunately, I have not one but two grocery stores within a block of my dorm, giving

me great access to an alternative to dining halls. However, not everyone is this lucky. The

University of Wisconsin-Madison, a campus that spans 40,000 square feet, has exactly 2 grocery

stores on campus. While I do not know exactly where all the dorms are located, one can only

assume many are not in close proximity to such an asset for college students. In the survey

taken, only 1 person said they spend at least $10 on groceries per week as opposed to 5 who said

they spend at least $10 on fast food per week. Part of this may have to do with the lack of

convenience, which is a shame since grocery stores should be a real asset for the average college

student.

At the end of the day, no matter how economically attractive other options are, students

will still buy fast food. I myself do it all the time even though I know how much money is being

thrown away. The reason I and others do it is because of the marginal utility. I can save a lot of

money eating at a dining hall, but can they make a $10 4-piece fried chicken box like Popeyes

can? Never.

Conclusion

Many students suffer from food insecurity, which Exists when there is limited or

uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to

acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways; thus, these students need viable

alternatives to spending money on food. Campus dining halls are not only free, but from the

Dillenburg 6
Kevin Dillenburg
12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
research done, they provide a lot of different options to encompass a wide range of student

preferences. Students have said the quality of this food is not great, but it is free and flexible,

making dining halls a viable option for those with food insecurity and those who dont want to

spend money on food. Free marginal utility is good marginal utility.

However, even food insecure students would hate to eat every meal of every day at the

same place, so students naturally venture out and buy food. Therefore, groceries provide a

valuable backup option that allows students to buy a lot of food in bulk, which drives down the

price and gives students many different options of food items to eat. Groceries are the best

economic backup to the dining hall, but they may not necessarily provide as much marginal

utility, which is why students venture out and buy fast food because neither groceries nor dining

hall food can compare with certain fast food meals.

Appendix A

Works Cited

Dillenburg 7
 Kevin Dillenburg
12/7/17
ENGL1001
Beth Godbee
Chaparro, M Pia, et al. Food Insecurity Prevalence among College Students at the University of
Hawai'i at Manoa. ProQuest, Nov. 2009, search.proquest.com/docview/223085375?pq-
origsite=gscholar.
Dining Services. Resident Dining, Marquette University, marquette.sodexomyway.com/dining-
choices/index.html.
Gaines, Alisha, et al. Examining the Role of Financial Factors, Resources and Skills in Predicting
Food Security Status among College Students. Wiley Online Library, International Journal of
Consumer Studies, 21 July 2014, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijcs.12110/full.
Marginal Utility. Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Nov. 2017,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility.
Patton-Lopez, Megan M., et al. Prevalence and Correlates of Food Insecurity Among Students
Attending a Midsize Rural University in Oregon. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior,
Elsevier, 2014, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404613007070.
Resident Meal Plans. Plan Options, Marquette University, marquette.sodexomyway.com/dining-
plans/index.html.

Dillenburg 8