Meal plans to roll over in '97

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Hicks confident that money will carry over from year to year

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by Felisa Yang

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The Residential College Management Advisory Committee has tentatively approved the plan to roll over meal plan money left from the spring semester to the following fall semester.

The plan, however, will not take effect until the spring of 1997.

Although the plan has not been officially approved, Marion Hicks, director of Food and Housing, is confident that it will be adopted.

The current plan allows students to roll over money from the fall semester to the following spring semester but not from spring to fall.

Students who wish to roll over dollar points to the following semester will be required to purchase plan four, a new plan which will include the base cost and pre-paid dinners but will have zero dollar points for additional meals.

A maximum of $150 worth of meal credits will be allowed to roll over. For off-campus students, a maximum of $50 can be rolled over between semesters.

F&H is a "self-sustaining entity," according to Hicks. A portion of its yearly revenue comes from meal money left over at the end of the year. This reduction in revenue may entail some increased prices in other areas.

"We may need to ease up some individual prices because [the money] has to be recovered some way," Hicks said.

Hicks also suggested cutting costs, but warned that this may prove to be difficult. There is no scheduled increase in the price of board, but room costs will increase by $100.

Money left over at the end of a student's career at Rice will not be refunded.

"That's playing with banking laws -- we can't issue refunds," Hicks said. He pointed out that students can buy food products directly from Central Kitchen at the end of the year.

This item appeared in the News section of the March 15, 1996 issue.

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