As the costs of tuition, room, and board at Wellesley College continue to rise, our group decided to collect quantitative and qualitative data on current students’ perceptions of the Wellesley meal plan. After researching the rising costs of the Wellesley meal plan, we became specifically interested in the student body’s awareness of increasing costs. As part of our project, we sent out a survey to the student body to learn about students’ opinions on the College’s current unlimited meal plan system. We hope that by sharing our findings, other students can use this research to continue the process of investigating whether the current system is the optimal model. The attached presentation contains the results of our school-wide survey, along with major takeaways. This survey was accompanied by a physical poster campaign aimed at increasing awareness of this issue on campus. We received 273 total responses and 81 students shared their ideas, concerns, and stories in the space provided for other thoughts. The feedback we received highlights concerns students have regarding food insecurity, which will be addressed by whomever takes over the project in the future. Since rapidly rising costs of living are a huge stressor on today’s college students, we hope that a re-evaluation of the living costs at Wellesley can result in changes that lower these costs while also ensuring food and housing security for all students.
Survey Results