« Remembering Rosa Parks: Parks’ tired refusal also symbolic | Main | Alum dies while serving in Peace Corps »
December 06, 2005
Students rush to spend increased declining balance
As finals loom over the collective student body, the last thing anyone needs is another thing to worry about. Enter: declining balance dollars. “I didn’t know I had so much money,” said Brad Bobbit, sophmore.
“I went to Klas [Cafe] about two weeks ago and they told me I had $190 that I needed to spend before the end of the semester.”
This year, Dining Services had to restructure the way that they accounted for meals. “We had a meal exchange problem,” said Sharon Tracy, Director of Dining Services. “Things like the Enron scandal last year forced us change the way we do accounting.” The change resulted in Hamline students only being able to use meals from their meal plans at Sorin, and declining balance dollars at the HUB and Klas Cafe.
“We tried to make the plans more flexible, with more declining balance, because students like to eat at those areas,” said Tracy. “We tried to balance meals with declining balance. More meals equals less declining balance, and vice versa.”
However, many students feel that they aren’t able to stretch under the new program and are surprised by the changes. “I assumed it was the same deal as last year,” said Bobbit, referencing last years meal program which had less declining balance and more of an emphasis on number of meals.
The main problem seems to be that students have trouble keeping track of this invisible form of money that will disappear completely at the end of every semester. Tracy suggest that if students are unsure of their balance, they should ask a caheir to check it or visit the Dining Service Center in Sorin.
- Kyle Parr
Posted by msveum at December 6, 2005 11:39 AM
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)