When a student that lives in the residence halls here at Montana State University pays for their housing, they are also automatically enrolled in either a five-day or seven-day meal plan. This meal plan seems like an excellent thing at first- the student never has to cook, wash dishes, or pay for meals individually. However, there comes an inevitable time in the year when the same student decides that they can't stand eating the dining hall food every day. These students, not having a kitchen readily available to them, end up going out to restaurants quite often.
Going out to restaurants is normally an expensive endeavor, but it becomes costly to an even greater extent when it is considered that the student is simultaneously paying for a meal in the dining hall that they are not even eating. This is the point at which the once convenient meal plan becomes a burden, leaving the student with only two choices. The first is that they eat every meal in the dining hall, whether they like what is being served or not, in order to achieve the full value of their meal plan. The second is that they pay for two meals at once. Neither of these options is ideal, and each can cause the student to experience a considerable amount of hardship. That is the paradox of the seemingly logical and convenient mandatory meal plan.
Image credit: http://petrockstudios.com/2011/07/17/to-eat-meat-or-not-eat-meat-vegetarian-vegan/
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