At the very end of a mandatory floor meeting early in the semester, the Resident Advisors (RAs) delivered an announcement: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) will change its current system for the meal plans and students will no longer be able to cash out at the end of each school year.

Following the announcement that night, Residence Life, a group of staff and students who manage on-campus housing, sent everyone an email with a more detailed description of how the meal plan would change. The email stated, “Residential students will continue to have required meal plans for the 2023-2024 academic year ($1200 for returning students or $1800 for new students). At the end of the Fall 2023 semester, any unused funds (dining dollars) will roll over to the Spring 2024 semester. After the last day of the Spring semester, any unused Dining Dollars will be forfeited.”

Infographic by Nidhi Shenoy

So what’s actually changing? Previously, when any student left SAIC — graduating, transferring, or any departure — students were able to take with them any unused funds left over in their meal plans. Now, students will no longer be able to do so. With this new policy, any unused funds at the end of the spring semester will be forfeited to the school. A student, Emma Varano (BFA 2025) commenting on the change said, “I think that this change is unjust and takes agency and further strips autonomy from students.”

As a result of this change, anyone who is currently enrolled in a meal plan will get a one-time credit at the end of this academic year with the remainder of their meal plan minus a $30 administrative fee. Those who have less than $30 on their meal plan will not receive anything. Previously anyone leaving the school would be able to take the remainder of their meal plan out of the account minus the $30 administrative fee, but if their account had less than the $30 administrative fee, the balance would be credited to their student account.

What is the one-time credit? 

The one-time credit is a deposit of money given to all students with unused dining dollars from their meal plans. Students cannot opt out of the one-time credit. This semester is the last semester that students will be able to receive credit from their meal plans.

In their FAQ page about the meal plan change, the school notes that the one-time credits will be given to students in June 2023 for this academic year. Students will not have to do anything to initiate the one-time credit, it will automatically be given to any of them with more than $30 in dining dollars. In addition to the forfeiture of unused dining dollars, there will also be a change in the price of the meal plan. In past years, the meal plan cost $575 a semester for returning students and $850 a semester for new students. Now, the price of the meal plan will be $600 a semester for returning students and $900 a semester for new students. This means that students living on campus will either be paying $1200 or $1800 each in addition to the cost of housing. With the meal plan, a returning student renting a private room in The Buckingham through the school would be paying $16,950  from the end of August to the beginning of May, while a student renting a private room from The Buckingham for an entire year would only pay $16,308.

Despite the changes to both the meal plan and the schedule next semester, there are no plans to change the cafeteria hours. Currently, the cafeterias have slightly differing hours, the Neiman Center Cafe is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays-Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, and 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays. The 280 Cafeteria is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday- Friday. The Maclean Cafeteria is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Friday. This means any students taking night courses, which will become more common after the schedule change, would be unable to use the cafeteria during the entirety of their class time despite paying $1200 or $1800 a year to use a meal plan exclusive to the school cafeterias.

In the FAQs page SAIC released about the meal plan change, the school answered the question, “Why is the meal plan changing?” with the explanation that “Colleges across the country work diligently to provide amazing food service to their community. Our new policies reflect the nationwide best practices for facilitating a quality food service.”

At SAIC, some students are unhappy with the meal plan change. Marcus Emdanat (BFA 2023) said, “It feels incredibly unfair and unjust to tie all on-campus students into an unbreakable meal plan contract-” He continued, “The fact that unused dining dollars will be forfeited at the end of each year just makes it infinitely worse since the dining hours and quality of the food have made it nearly impossible to use up the dining dollars in a timely manner.”

Many students felt that the worst part of the change was the lack of student involvement and lack of communication with students about the change. Emdanat, who lives off-campus, said they weren’t informed about the change through the school, and “if the only way anyone learns about this is through RAs or word-of-mouth, then people living off-campus who plan to move into on-campus housing cannot make informed decisions about their finances and housing plans.” Another student, Emma Varano, said, “​​Upon receiving the news of this prospective change, we were not asked our opinion, only that it was occurring, and essentially the feeling that our thoughts on it were not of material importance.”

Students who spoke to F said they either felt the changes were unnecessary, unfair, or didn’t make sense without anything changing in the cafeteria.

Alexis Ramirez (BFA 2026) said, “With this change, the cafes should be providing more reasons for people to come eat at the school, and it will feel like the money we’re spending is worth it.”

The cafeteria used to have longer hours, but they were shortened during the pandemic. Kyla Robateau (BFA 2026) said, “The campus cafeterias are so hard to use already. The hours are bad, I can’t eat breakfast or dinner there most of the time.”