At East Tennessee State University (ETSU), the default plan for housing is that if you live on campus, you are automatically required to have the Silver Meal Plan (Cost is $1,860/semester) for their first four semesters. With this plan you get around 800 meal swipes and $100 in Dining Dollars. This plan is NOT worth the cost. They do not reimburse you for the meal swipes you did not use, nor do your meal swipes transfer over to the next semester so you'd have some left over. 

While the cafeteria does have it's good days serving food. There are days that you will come across severely uncooked meats, moldy bread, fruit flies everywhere, and so many more issues. For what students are paying, this does not meet adequate standards. The dishes are never clean, you can always find crumbs and residue on plates, bowls, and utensils and residue from countless mouths on cups. 

The other issue is that you have students who live in some of the halls, for example, Centennial hall that has a kitchen within their dorm room- or the halls have provided kitchens you can use. Many students would rather buy groceries and cook meals for themselves, because they may have eating restrictions that they cannot satisfy within the Culp dining hall. These students would much rather be on a block plan, which only costs $880/semester with more dining dollars to use, then spend almost $2000 to only go in the cafeteria once a week. 

We are trying to raise awareness to this issue because there are many students who are facing the same issues, and will not enter the cafeteria. Students will swipe to go in, make a loop, and walk right back out.

ETSU we are begging you to solve this issue, or at least give all students the option to either stay on the silver plan, or be able to choose the block plan.