Most colleges required freshmen to purchase a meal plan and believe it will be beneficial for students because it can ensure students to spend money on food not on other things. However, I am inclined that students should be given the freedom and choices of what to want to eat and how they want to spend their money.
Many of my friends are freshmen and I couldn't hear them enough complaining about that colleges are offering very limited variety of food. There are few alternatives available for them to choose and they can easily get sick of eating on campus. Not to mention, most of food that colleges do provide are junk food with high fat and calorie. However, they still decide to eat on campus because of the meal plan. Thus, having meal plan definitely is attributable to students' unhealthy eating habit, which may cause they suffer health problems in the future.
College food is relatively expensive compare to the food off campus. I remember that I bought a box of ice cream for $5.99 from campus grocery store, however, it actually costs me only $2.99 in Wal-Mart. It really promotes a negative effect on students who don't know how to spend money irrationally. In addition, if students don't use out of the meal plan by the end of semester, the money left out on the plan go wasted. Therefore, meal plan couldn't really help student spend money wisely; rather provide a image of that wasting is appropriate.
Furthermore, freshmen can learn how to become responsible and manage to spend money if they are provided the chance. They would probably feel more appreciated for their parent's hard working when they see how money can be easily gone. They can also make budget for the weakly food expense, and if it goes beyond the budget, they can use the extra dollars to treat themselves while it is over budget, they can rearrange the budget plan and spend more cautiously with next purchase. With meal plan, there is no way that freshmen can learn and grow to a better person with accountabilities and smart budgeting skills.
In conclusion, I maintain that colleges should not require freshmen to use meal plan. Meal plan only can restrict students' ability to develop various skills. It also promotes a negative attribute of spending money. Therefore, colleges should encourage student to spend money in their own ways because it will help student build up their conception of how money can be spend in a more economical and reasonable way.
