All Access Meal Plan turns two as concerns persist

The 2025-2026 academic year marks the second year of the All Access Meal plan mandate, and another year of growing pains for dining services and students as they work through the transition. Many in the sophomore class, the first group of students who must pay for the all access plan throughout their four years at Davidson, are starting the year with frustrations about what the plan covers and the quality of food. 

The all access meal plan, which costs $9,100.00 annually, includes unlimited meal swipes to Vail Commons, six $12 meal-equivalency swipes per week. The plan also includes $250 dining dollars per semester. 

Director of Auxiliary Services Richard Terry, said the mandatory All Access plan was created to combat food insecurity on campus. 

“Over the years, we’ve heard that students are not getting enough to eat,” Terry said. “Having students on campus who are worried about whether they’re going to get enough to eat that day is something that the College really can’t abide by.” 

However, some sophomores members of Patterson Court Council organizations (PCC) are concerned about just that.  

The majority of sophomore PCC members are on the PC10 Meal Plan. They receive 10 meals at their organization, six Commons swipes, four meal-equivalency swipes, and $250 dining dollars per semester. 10 meals from the house, plus 10 swipes for commons/other campus dining locations adds up to a total of 20 meals per week, or 2.8 meals a day. The 250 dining dollars is supposed to cover that third meal, mapping out to $15.63 per meal in a 16 week semester.

Riley Light ’28 belongs to the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity. He said  $12 is often not enough to cover a meal. 

“A meal swipe on campus has the equivalent price of $12,” Light said. “Most items being purchased end up exceeding that $12 limit and dipping into your dining dollars.”

Patrick Plaehn ’28 works at the Wildcat Den. He often sees students going over their allotted $12 meal swipe when they order.

“Almost every time somebody comes to Wildcat Den [they] can’t usually order a sandwich and a [drink without] going over and dipping into their dining dollars,” Plaehn said. “It’s just taking it down 60 cents at a time.”

Terry said that an exclusion of a 21’st meal-swipe in favor of relying on Dining Dollars was a matter of calculating an exact total of 21 meals a week for students in PCC organizations. 

“It wasn’t like we said ‘Oh, we absolutely can’t add a 21st meal.’ It was just kind of in our heads, the math of getting the 21. If you take the $200 and divide it over a semester […] that works out to, in our view, roughly on average, a meal a week.”

Terry said that students eating the full number of meals on their plans is not common, though he did not provide data to back that up. “It is kind of the rare student who eats 21 meals a week.

In his interview with The Davidsonian, Terry said the plan included 200 dining dollars. However, in an email later in the week, Terry shared that the number would be upped to 250 due to a communication error earlier in the summer. 

“In July, incoming first-year students received an email from Auxiliary Services that provided a description of their meal plan and how it can be used on campus. The All-Access meal plan included $200 in Dining Dollars. “The email incorrectly indicated that it included $250 in Dining Dollars. […] We want students to pay attention to and trust communications from our office. For that reason, we will honor the Dining Dollar amount of $250 listed in the July email.” 

Students still have concerns outside of the dining dollar amount. 

Dillon Newman ’28, also a member of Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity, is a Type 1 Diabetic and goes to Commons for the variety of food offered. He thinks that students on the PC10 plan should still be allowed unlimited meal swipes.

“Coming from someone who can’t eat high carb [meals] for medical reasons, fraternity food is not the best for me in a lot of ways,” Newman said. “I think that we’ve tried our best to […] get more things that are healthy [at the fraternity]. But realistically, Commons will always have the most healthy options, and if we’re paying for the same meal system, why are we losing our unlimited swipes?”

Frustrations with the dining plan are not limited to students who are in PCC organizations, as all students in the class of 28 and onwards must foot the $9,100 bill every year. 

“Removing choice and forcing students onto the most expensive possible plan is clearly a move incentivized by profit and not incentivized by health of the students or well- being of the students, or improving dining services, period,” Plaehn said. 

Chair of the Student Government Association (SGA) Food and Housing Committee Ezra Steinman ’28 said that the SGA has had conversations with the administration about the limitations of the All Access Meal Plan, all circling back to the reality that Dining Services must turn a profit.

“We’ve [SGA] tried to negotiate with the administration, with Pinky Varghese as well as Richard Terry […] It’s been difficult because they are trying to make money. [Davidson] needs to keep Commons open, and they need to keep all of their new dining locations open, and so they are going to try to make the most money possible.”

Terry said that because Dining Services is not subsidized by the College, the student meal plan payments contribute to factors like property upkeep for dining establishments, paying employees, and growth. 

“Sometimes students think, ‘Well, it shouldn’t cost this much.’” Terry said. “Remember that, like any other business, we’re also responsible for the spaces that we’re serving out of.”

What Dining Services is serving is also a topic of discussion among students. 

Lennox Goslin ’28 is not a member of PCC. He said he could not afford the social dues on top of what he was paying for the all access plan. At the same time, he said that he has struggled to find food that he deems nutritionally adequate on campus, leading him to seek employment in the food industry, despite having to pay for the All Access meal plan. 

“I learned that where I work now, I could actually make a little food for myself […] That single handedly kind of saved a few of my evenings per week,” Goslin said. “That’s still extra money coming out of my pocket after I’ve already invested $4,000 a semester into a dining hall that’s supposed to well cover my food interests.”

Food insecure students may be deterred from joining PCC organizations under the new meal plan. But to Terry, the numbers do not reflect student concerns. 

“My understanding from [the Student Activities Center] is that PCC sign ups by class [of ’28], were as big or bigger than they’d been. So at least on the surface, anticipating what might be coming this fall, [the meal plan] didn’t appear to scare anybody off,” Terry said.

“This is new to all of us, so we’re going to need to see if there are unintended consequences, and be prepared to adjust if something doesn’t seem like it’s working right.” 

The administration is working to gather data to see how often students are maxing out their meal swipes and respond accordingly. 

“I did look at [the data] last week and the percentage of students that were on the Patterson Court Council, who had exhausted everything that we had given them was a really small number. That doesn’t mean it’s not an issue for those students,” Terry said. 

“We really want to understand how many folks are being affected [by a lack of food], because […] if we were to do any kind of change, it might affect what that change looks like.”