It is common knowledge around campus that Houston Market is an easy place to steal food from.
We wholeheartedly condemn this theft and encourage the University to hire additional security and better utilize their recently installed cameras to deter it.
But we also want the administration to acknowledge one of the causes that drives students to steal — dissatisfaction with meal plans.
Yes, it’s true that students steal from Houston for a variety of reasons. Most of the time, they simply do not want to spend money, prefer not to wait in line or find it easier to just walk out without paying. But for students on mandatory dining plans, the theft is partly a result of discontent with the inflexibility of the plans they purchased.
Most dining plans contain an inordinate number of meal swipes and a paltry sum of dining dollars. Students generally struggle to use the former and quickly run out of the latter.
Houston, which does not accept meal swipes, becomes a target for those who want to conserve or have exhausted their supply of dining dollars.
The University should offer more flexible dining plan options for students. It could allow students to shape their plans as the semester progresses or to exchange unused meal swipes for dining dollars.
If nothing else, improving the dining plan options would rule out one reason students give for stealing food from Houston.
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