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Dining Plan Benefits

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Purchasing a dining plan as a student at Georgia Southern University is a smart investment that goes beyond mere convenience. It offers a variety of nutritious meal options that cater to diverse dietary needs, ensuring that students have access to balanced and healthy food choices essential for maintaining their energy and focus throughout their academic journey. Additionally, a dining plan provides the flexibility to eat at multiple on-campus locations, fostering a sense of community and making it easier to connect with peers during meal times. This convenience allows students to save time and money, eliminating the need to shop for groceries and cook, thereby enabling them to dedicate more time to their studies and campus activities.

Having a Dining Plan…

  • Eliminates the stress of grocery shopping, meal-prepping, or rushed meals. With meal access to Dining Commons and Lakeside Dining Commons on the Statesboro Campus and The Galley on the Armstrong Campus, students are capable of enjoying healthy meals at their convenience.
  • The shared meal experience becomes an important time for them to interact with their peers, forge friendships and develop a sense of community.
  • Access+ Dining Plans allow students to enjoy Eagle Dining residential locations as well as retail brands such as Starbucks or Chick-fil-A and convenience stores like our many GUS Marts. This provides options and variety for every dining plan!
  • No hassle, no fuss. Everything is connected to your Eagle Card or Eagle Card Mobile ID, so you don’t have to worry about keeping up additional cards.

Important Factors to Consider

Cost

College students spend over $78 billion on food and groceries, which has increased nearly $10 billion in the past year. (Education Data Initiative)

Ask yourself – How much are you going to spend weekly on food, eating off-campus + groceries compared to having a dining plan?

Accessibility

Most dining halls are located in convenient areas, central to campus or near on-campus residence halls. It’s easy for a student to stop by a dining hall before, after or between classes throughout the day.

Ask yourself – How far, and how frequently, will you need to travel to get food?

Convenience

For most, having a dining plan is more convenient than sourcing and cooking food on their own.

Ask yourself – How much are you going to spend weekly to travel and source food throughout the semester? Will you have enough time to prepare meals while also studying, attending class, and working on projects?

Food Insecurity

Food insecurity is becoming more prevalent in on-campus populations. In the United States, 47 million people, including 14 million children, experience food insecurity annually. Food insecurity is a significant problem for many college students in the United States. It’s defined as a lack of consistent access to food. That’s why it’s important for us to offer students a healthy, consistent source of food while attending school, especially in their first-year at Georgia Southern.

  • An estimated 23% of college students (3.8 million) experienced food insecurity in 2020.
  • Among food insecure students in 2020, a majority (2.2 million) had very low food security, meaning they reported multiple instances of eating less than they should or skipping meals because they could not afford enough food.
  • 36% of Americans reported “following a specific eating pattern or diet within the last year,” like a vegetarian or gluten-free diet, with Gen Z and Millennials being more likely than previous generations.

Why Get a Dining Plan?

  • Less Spending
    • re: fuel’s “College Explorer ’12” study indicates that 32% of students surveyed have increased their spending on groceries since last year, up from 29% who indicated an increase in 2011. Source.
  • Stay on Campus and Focused
    • “Nine in 10 college students (90%) visit a grocery store at least once a month; on average, students grocery shop 4.7 times each month.”
  • More Convenient
    • With an dining plan, students can make fewer trips to the grocery store and spend less. Shopping for food, preparing three meals a day and cleaning up afterwards would add to the time pressures that our students already feel. We want to help them focus on learning, not whether they have food for dinner that night.
  • Establish New Campus Traditions
    • On-campus dining offers an opportunity to create new traditions in dining halls that students can look forward to year after year. This will encourage students to purchase meal plans, even when they move off campus, and will generate excitement within the student community.