Student loan debt has surpassed $1 trillion nationwide.

The Gazette reports.

Mandatory meal plans add to college debt

IOWA CITY — If student debt is a pile of spaghetti, residence hall meal plans are the meatballs on top.

Some Iowa college students say mandatory meal plans — required of most residence hall dwellers at Iowa’s public universities — add to student loan debt, which has surpassed $1 trillion nationwide.

“I definitely feel like I could have a smaller meal plan,” said Tina Remec, a University of Iowa freshman from Naperville, Ill.

Remec and her friends had so many meals left over at the end of the fall semester they used their extras — which don’t carry over — to buy sandwiches, fruit, chips and cookies to make more than 20 brown-bag lunches for homeless people. While she was glad to help others, Remec would have preferred to save the money.


 
 0 
 
 0