There are many places that students can go to get a snack or lunch, on the Colorado State University Pueblo campus, but the prices on some of the items could seem outrageous.
One of the most popular spots that students go for a quick bite to eat, is the Café Libro. The Café Libro is conveniently located in the Library and Academic Resource Center, for students moving between classes.
The locations of most places on campus to get food are convenient, however the prices are not.
The university is trying to make a profit off of the food and drinks that they sell, but they seem to be overshooting the competition by quite a bit.
It costs $1.89 for a basic peanut butter and jelly sandwich from Café Libro. It would be much cheaper, in the long run, to buy a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly from a grocery store, like Wal-Mart, to make several sandwiches.
This can also be the case for many of the products that can be bought on campus. One package of Pop-Tarts, costs $1.09, while a box of eight packages, or 16 individual pastries, at Wal-Mart, costs around $3.
The cost of dining on campus is also expensive. For one semester at CSU-Pueblo, it costs $1,885 to have an unlimited meal plan for the Columbine Café.
This evens out to about $377 for food per month for those students paying for the unlimited plan. That is more than most people spend on groceries, for one, in a month.
“Last semester I was on the 80 meal a semester plan. It is way cheaper for me to buy my own food. You can easily spend the same amount of money for more food somewhere else,” Joe Rosenbrock, sophomore math education major said.
However, there are reasons why the student body might have to pay so much more for food.
First, some of the CSU-Pueblo students that live on campus do not have a form of transportation and have no choice but to accept the higher prices of the snacks.
“I live on campus so it’s more manageable to get to the food here. I don’t have a car either,” Shirley Evans, sophomore, psychology major said.
While other students may have the means of transportation, they may not have any way of keeping food from spoiling in their dorm rooms, due to a lack of refrigeration. Without a refrigerator, students cannot make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, because they don’t have anything to keep the jelly cold.
“I used to use my Thunderbucks to get snacks but now that I’m not on the meal plan I try not to buy anything. If I didn’t have an apartment I think I would be more tempted to buy more though,” Rosenbrock said,