Introduction

During the 2023-2024 academic school year at Western Kentucky University, the WKU Restaurant Group removed the Weekly 21 meal plan. The Gatton Academy was forced to adopt the All-Access Meal Plan for its students, a controversial change to many who craved Chick-Fil-A for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am here to challenge the notion that more meal swipes are the answer to quench the hunger of Gatton Students. The All-Access Meal Plan allows for more creativity and freedom, beating out the rigidity of the Weekly 21 meal plan.

Context

Many universities offer a meal swipe system in their meal plans. Meal swipes are a discrete currency where each swipe can purchase food adequate for a single meal. WKU restaurants have a sub-menu for meal swipes, and the meal swipe options are available online and at a link at the bottom of this blog. Students can use up to four meal swipes in a day. Meal swipes can also be used as an entry to the all-you-can-eat style buffets like the Fresh Food Company nicknamed “Fresh.”

The Weekly 21 Plan gives the student 21 meal swipes that reset every Monday morning and a few hundred dollars to be used through the semester at on-campus restaurants. In contrast, the All-Access Meal Plan affords students 10 weekly meal swipes, unlimited entries into the buffets (one entry per hour), and also a few hundred dollars for WKU restaurants.

Diversity in Choice

When it comes to diverse options, the Weekly 21 seems to win this category. Not including customization with different toppings and such, there are about 68 meal swipe options across all WKU locations according to the WKU’s Spring 2022 Value Meals document. The number of meal swipe options has increased since then, but they are not visible online.

Assuming order does not matter, the student can use the same meal swipe multiple times, and that the student must use all 21 meal swipes in a week, there are about 21⁶⁸ possible combinations of meal swipes a student may have in a week, which is 80 million times as many atoms there are in the universe.

Meanwhile, the All-Access meal plan has 10⁶⁸ possible meal swipe combinations in a week, which is 8 sextillion times smaller than the number of combos on the Weekly 21. The Weekly 21 seems to sweep the All-Access meal plan in diversity. However, this naive argument only thrives in theory.

In reality, most Gatton students restrict themselves to a select few meal swipes from a handful of restaurants based on proximity, convenience, and personal preference. I’ve seen students abuse their digestive systems with fried chicken sandwiches, French fries, and soda for every single meal of the day. Many students never set foot in the Den by Denny’s or the Spread, simply because they are too far from our residence hall.

Then, the benefit of the Weekly 21 Plan really comes from the volume. While not advised, students have the option to eat at whichever place they desire for any meal of the day, given that the restaurant is open, and they budgeted swipes properly. The problem with this is that many of the popular restaurants like Moe’s Southwest Grill, Panda Express, and Road Trip America are restricted to serving at lunchtime on weekdays only. After 4pm, the most popular dinner time locations on campus become Fresh, Chick-Fil-A, and Eiffel Pizza. With all this considered, the estimate of 21⁶⁸ meal swipe combinations in a week becomes impractical given the hours of operation and preferences of most students. 

Fresh Food Company

Most of the controversy seems to originate from the general disdain for Fresh. Many students question the quality of the food and the new options they offer every day at their various sections inside of Fresh. Some would rather spend money eating at restaurants off-campus than to default to Fresh.

While there are things Fresh could improve about their cuisine and dining experience, I believe much of this animosity comes from a lack of creativity and adventure. So many students keep the burger and fries at their grill section or their pasta at the saute every single time without taking advantage of the buffet experience to create their own dishes. These students seem to believe that they can’t take items from the salad bar to add to their entrees, or ice cream and soda to make their own vanilla Coca-Cola float.

In addition, the All-Access meal plan allows “unlimited” entry into Fresh, which really means entry every hour. In theory, a student that skipped every class in a week could obtain 89 boxes of food from Fresh and still have 10 meal swipes to spend at any other location on campus. Those boxes could be filled to the brim with Lucky Charms cereal, bread, spinach, beans, fries, mushrooms, yogurt, croutons, and anything else they offer in Fresh.

It is always so convenient to come by Fresh for just a black coffee, some soup, or a small post-workout meal being forced to wait to feel hungry to eat a proper meal. It’s also impossible to forget to budget, given that one can’t use every entry to Fresh at once.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the potential of the All-Access Meal Plan is unmatched compared to the Weekly 21. It comes across as unassuming, but being unafraid to go against the grain has allowed me to realize what is possible with unlimited entry, unlimited power. Don’t be afraid of what other people may think of your Fresh optimism. You are different. You see what unlimited Fresh access can achieve. In the words of former Academic Opportunities Coordinator Cheryl Kirby-Stokes, “Be wolves, not sheep.”

WKU Spring 2022 Value Meals (OUTDATED): https://www.wku.edu/wkurg/documents/spring2022valuemeals.pdf