alt Hacker News> The gaming doesn’t stop at disability. Stanford requires undergrads to purchase an $7,944 annual meal plan—unless they claim a religious dietary restriction the cafeteria can’t accommodate.
Isn’t the mandatory meal plan also a game by the university? A really frustrating trend I’ve seen more companies do nowadays is to tack on mandatory charges for crap that I don’t need or want, and it’s happening everywhere.
If declaring a disability is what it takes to get out of a compulsory meal charge, then it’s worth examining why the school feels compelled to make the meal plan mandatory in the first place.
It’s not just students or consumers playing a game, companies (or universities in this case) are playing one too, and it’s called: how to get as much money out of our customers as possible.
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Yeah, my step-daughter is a vegetarian. She cannot opt out of the several thousand dollar a year meal plan at her college despite the campus dining facilities having often only one not-particularly-good vegetarian option (I'm not vegetarian but when visiting I've tried the options).
So we're left with paying her credit card to buy groceries and a largely unused meal plan.
> it’s worth examining why the school feels compelled to make the meal plan mandatory in the first place.
Well, that's often because Aramark and Chartwells (Compass) require that in their contracts. My partner is the Accounting Manager for another university in our state and that's mandated in their contract (along with other clauses like "any event on campus must be offered to us for catering first, and we will either cater it or decline, and only then can you use another caterer").
There can be debates on why that is allowed in the negotiation, though.
That’s because it’s smart business when you abuse your captive customer base, totally different thing. When pesky customers do the same back to you, well, time to complain about the ‘third worldification of American institutions,’ or something.