Higher Education Charging High Prices For Food On Campus

Much to the surprise of no one who actually eats here on campus, the price of food on campus is apparently much higher than it is in the surrounding community. In his article for his school paper, the Statesman, Bryan Carroll discovered that while rolling through his local Student Activity Center that the prices for regular food items was generally much higher than they would have been off-campus. For instance, he notes how a half-gallon of milk was being sold at a school convenience store for $3.37 where as the exact same product was being offered at a nearby Target for $2.19. Oreo cookies were a whopping $8.27 on-campus versus $2.50 at Target.

Generally, he noticed an average markup of about 42 percent on grocery items.

Arguably, the point could be made that given the basic (and purest) interpretation of supply and demand this is merely a sound decision to take advantage of the reduced competition and great location. And I suppose that you could also mark this as a learning experience for students to become more aware of comparison shopping. I think, though, maybe it’s not so nice to take advantage of sleep-deprived students with exorbitant markups when they are already paying such a premium to attend school and live on campus already.

via The Statesman