While Sonoma State’s campus is known for its livelihood through on-campus eateries and coffee places alike, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused many students to lose access to their favorite places to eat, hangout, and study with friends. With classes coming back in-person, the familiar feeling of community on-campus is returning, with Lobo’s Pizza and Pub and other snack and drink spots opening back up for students.  However, many students still have their own gripes with these food spots on campus, generally surrounding the limited hours of operation, and the high prices for food and beverages.

Lobo’s is open Monday through Friday from 11:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m., which doesn’t give students who have afternoon classes the opportunity to take advantage of the “college experience” that’s supposed to come with returning to campus.  Even with the pub closing before dark, the food and drink prices are hardly friendly to a student budget.  $7 for a beer and $9 for a salad, $14 if you want chicken, shows the university is in it more for a buck, and less to cater to its students.

Second-year Business administration major, Jason Doktorzyk, said, “I think the food at Lobo’s is overpriced for what you’re given.  As a college student on a budget I want to have somewhere on campus besides the cafeteria where I can get reasonably priced food.”  Doktorzyk has yet to turn 21, so he hasn’t even taken into account the prices of alcoholic drinks on top of his meal.

Lobo’s is not the only one charging a pretty penny for its services. Sip, the on campus coffee shop in the student center, prices their drinks close to what Starbucks charges.  They charge $4.45 for a 16 oz. cold brew and $2.75 for a plain coffee, if you want any creamer that’s $.70 on top.  These services are meant to help students within their day to day lives, instead of making budgeting more of a challenge.  The real problem lies with the food served at Sip; $8 for a breakfast burrito and $12 for a small plate of sushi is a hefty price for budgeting students to pay for the convenience of having eateries on campus.

College is supposed to be a time for students to grow, mature, and pick up life skills that will help them transition into adulthood.  The restaurants that are on campus don’t help students learn to be financially responsible because they are there to gouge students and as opposed to supporting them. 

This challenge to budgeting also rings true with the Kitchens, the on-campus cafeteria, and the way they set up how students spend their money there.  Although the Kitchens provide a wide variety of food and drink options, the prices are still too high for college students that may have been hoping to rely on it. If you want to just go every once in a while, and not get a meal plan, it is a $14 entry fee, complete with unlimited food and drink of your choosing. 

In addition, the meal plans offered through the school might have options with the least stipulations for accessing the cafeteria, but the issue lies with the options through the cafeteria. These “all access meal plans”, “Seawolf All Access” and “Weekday all access,” don’t seem to offer as much as they’re selling to students. A few of the dining areas through the Kitchens aren’t even open to students, such as Sizzle and Passport, with no price cuts in the meal plan offers whatsoever. These meal plans are each north of $2,000 and allow students to get food as they see fit, but they continue to add steep challenges to how students are able to budget their funds during their time away at college.

Although the university may do a great job of making sure people have options on campus to eat that many other schools don’t, they need to do a better job at coordinating the hours and reevaluating the prices they charge.  The prices and hours do not align with having students learn and grasp time and money management skills.