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As grocery prices have continued to soar across the metro due to a changing economy, the dining hall has experienced a rise in students deciding to eat on campus instead of making food on their own. According to the Food Service Director, in 2022, students eating on-campus food options have fallen from 83% down to 75%. For some students, eating at the café is easier than making food on their own.  

According to the Statista Research Department, the rate of inflation on need-to-buy products such as food, clothes, and living arrangements increased by 8% in 2022. However, the wage growth across the nation has only risen by 6.7% with the minimum wage staying stagnant since its increase in 2009. Although budgeting can help with groceries specifically, dips in the economy can make it harder and harder for Americans to live with food insecurity, especially college students.  

The Grand View University dining hall staff serves over 300 meals every day to students who want to swing by for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Open seven days a week from 7:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night, the GVU dining hall is one of the most used and talked about locations on campus. The dining hall has six different group options when it comes to which types of food they serve. These food groups include deli, produce market, grill, pizzas, dessert, and entrée. While some groups serve mostly the same thing every day, groups like the entrées and desserts rotate daily. GVU also offers a full-fledged salad bar that is open for every meal.  

If options become too overwhelming, they can set up meal plans for students who want to get the best out of their eating, along with giving nutritional information about all the food they serve on their campus dish website. These are what GVU likes to call, “Menu Highlights,” which include vegan options, eat well options (lower in calories, saturated fat, and sodium), vegetarian (contains no meat, fish, or poultry), cool food meal (minimal impact on climate), whole grains, and plant-forward.  

“Sometimes, if I’m just not in the mood to make anything back in my apartment, I just check to see what the café is serving and if it’s something I’ll enjoy, I just head on down,” said Jacob Thomas, a junior at GVU. “I do think though, sometimes the options that they have are just lacking,” Thomas said. 

Thomas also said that if the café wants to see more students, he believes they should make their more popular items a permanent menu option. 

This has seemed like a common saying among students along with loss of interest due to mediocre options being offered on the regular. 

Managers of the GVU Dining Hall have heard these rumblings from students and have continued to be open for change including adding surveys onto their website for student feedback, and recently trying sessions where students can come in and try new foods the café might start serving. While Dining Services Director Amanda Riordan did not respond to requests for comment on the recent changes coming to the menu, it has been known that more drink options will be coming,  as well as common favorites amongst students: chicken nuggets and wings.  

Charles Parker, a senior at GVU, talked about the change as a frequent café visitor.  

“I know with the changes of the chefs now, they have their own menus that they like to make so we’re having a lot more ethnic foods being served, which I think is good,” Parker said. I’m not sure though how many other people like that food because I see a lot of people try it and then they don’t like it, so they don’t go back up for more, so at the end of the day, I think people are sticking to the salad bar and or burgers and such,” Parker said. 

But what is making the grocery prices so high that students feel like they have to eat on campus? Environmental factors, an impending recession, and persistent inflation are a few of the factors to blame for the increasing cost of food. This problem can be traced back to the pandemic disruptions to the food supply chain around the world. Those disruptions are still being felt by Americans today, three years later. However, the pandemic is not the only global disruption that may be to blame for the outrageous prices, such as a $5 carton of eggs. The war in Ukraine has affected wheat exports by two of the biggest wheat producers in the world; Russia and Ukraine. The world is facing a shortage due to their decimated production capabilities.  

“Usually, I tend to gravitate towards frozen options that are not as time-consuming to make. With the prices of fresh food and produce going up, it’s harder to want to buy those nutrient-dense foods, even though they are probably better for me,” Lexi Kuecker, junior at GVU said. 

Budgeting helps college students with shopping, but the increase in price makes it difficult for students to purchase everything that they need.   

“I buy about the same or less stuff now,” Max Martin, Junior at GVU said. “And it costs twice as much as it did before.” 

Recently, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the cost of groceries itself rose by 13.1% from August 2021 to August 2022. Due to this, college students will spend on average close to $294.06 per month on groceries and an additional $369.36 on eating out. Although meal plans are created to help students avoid food insecurity, the US average cost of college food plans range around $4,500, which doesn’t include the price of students still eating out with friends or when the dining hall is closed.  

“I just buy easy stuff since I eat in the cafe, but next year I am planning on not eating in the cafe as much so I am going to have to buy a lot more,” Martin said.  

This can be frustrating for students who can only work a few hours per week but still need to have enough money to buy food. 

According to the Oxford Dictionary, food insecurity is defined as “the condition of not having access to sufficient food, or food of an adequate quality, to meet one’s basic needs.” A recent survey reported that four-year colleges around the nation have 29% of students experiencing food insecurity within the past 30 days. The lack of sufficient food affects both the physical and mental well-being of people and can affect how college students perform within their academics. Students with food insecurity are more likely to have a lower GPA, not show up to class, less likely to turn in high quality homework or turn it in at all, and are statistically more likely to suffer from anxiety and depression. (healthaffairs.org) 

What are students doing to try and navigate around these price increases? 

“Go to Dollar General, you can buy everything, it’s the same thing for like 3 dollars less,” Martin said. 

There are multiple different alternatives to grocery shopping than just Hy-vee or Fareway, which are the main grocery centers in Iowa. Aldi is more convenient for GVU students in general because of the close range to campus compared to Hy-vee or Walmart. Aldi also has cheap prices for high quality food in comparison to their competitors. 

“It’s good to buy in bulk at Sam’s Club or Costco and some select items, such as butter are cheaper to buy at Walmart,” Megan Mckee, a senior off-campus GVU student said.  

College students cannot expect a decrease in prices or extreme shift in cafeteria food any time soon, learning techniques on budgeting and utilizing the campus food when needed is crucial. Asking friends and family members for recipes or food life-hacks can also help with avoiding a food insecure environment.  

Let’s face it, college students should worry more about their next test rather than their next meal.