RACHEL GERZEVSKE
Contributing Writer
rgg5144@psu.edu

   Penn State’s meal plans are valuable assets to students across the country, serving as the primary form of payment at each campus’s dining halls that can be adjusted throughout the semester. What some students may not know, however, is that the meal plan is more useful than it appears.

     Penn State’s website describes the meal plan as “accepted at every campus dining location and across the state at multiple Penn State campuses.” What’s intriguing about this statement is that the Galley, Behrend’s on-campus convenience store, features several essential yet inedible items as part of their inventory that can be paid for with the meal plan. Among these items are hair care products, skin care products, hygiene products, laundry detergent, dish soap, and cell phone chargers that can be paid for with the meal plan. For comparison, the bookstore, whose stock primarily consists of notebooks, textbooks, flash drives, calculators, Penn State paraphernalia, and an assortment of snacks only accepts payment via cash, lion cash, or through credit/debit cards. 

     The versatility of the meal plan allows students to direct their spending towards the campus’s dining halls and the Galley, with its value decreasing as students move to off-campus housing and have more options available to them for food and other essential items. This leaves lion cash as a backup plan for students once their meal plans run dry.

     What separates lion cash from the meal plan is its exclusivity. Lion cash covers what meal plans cannot, such as items from the bookstore, food and drinks from vending machines, postage costs, and laundry, with the costs for washing machines increasing by 200% and dryers by 300% since Aug. 2020. Additionally, there are some places near campus that will accept lion cash as payment or provide a discount for students with their Penn State IDs, but the exact number of locations accepting lion cash is currently unknown and all of them require transportation from a third party unless students can drive themselves.

     This model may work better for other Penn State campuses, but at Behrend, it’s hard to deny how one form of payment can be overused while another can be underused. Analysis of student spending habits and partnering with more local businesses to support lion cash could help equalize spending gaps between plans and encourage students to spend their money more effectively.