There will be changes in the upcoming semester regarding the meal plans for Keene State students. The changes will mostly be made to two of the meal plan options provided at Keene.
Jen Ferrell, the associate vice president for student engagement, explained how the changes are going to be minor compared to the last time Keene State changed the meal plan between 2018 and 2019.
“The structure related to naming and how many plans there are will remain,” Ferrell said. “White 100 and Red 40 are new, but they’re pretty similar to what we’ve had before. Actual swipes have shifted. Red 40 has 40 swipes and 250 meal plan dollars and White 100 has 100 swipes and 200 meal plan dollars.”
The Hootie’s Choice plan has 230 meal swipes and 400 meal plan dollars. The Owl Access Annual plan, which will be required for incoming first-years until they reach 30 credits in their sophomore year, has unlimited meals and 250 meal plan dollars. The 2024-2025 meal plan contract lists Owl Access as having unlimited entry to the dining commons and 750 meal plan dollars. Hootie’s Choice, meanwhile, had 600 meal plan dollars and 230 meals.
White 100 and Red 40 were previously White 60 and Red 10, which both had 600 meal plan dollars and 60 meals and 10 meals respectively. The meal plan dollars for the upcoming school year have notably decreased from the 2024-2025 academic school year, which usually is put towards Lloyd’s and on-campus dining outside of the dining commons.
According to the Dine on Campus website, “Students living on campus who have accumulated 0 to 29 credits must select the Owl Access Meal Plan,” while “Students living on campus who have accumulated 30 to 59 credits must select either the Owl Access or Hootie’s Choice Meal Plan.” Juniors (60-89 credits) and seniors (90 credits or more) will have a choice between three or four of the options. Seniors will be the only class able to choose Red 40 as a Meal Plan.
The meal plan contract for 2025-2026 further elaborates that if no meal plan is chosen by the student, sophomores will be automatically assigned the Owl Access plan, juniors will be assigned White 100 and seniors will be assigned Red 40.
Ferrell explained she does not believe the change will have a large effect on the student population on campus.
“There’s the same level of flexibility of plans,” Ferrell said. “There is the fact that the first-years will now have the required first-year plan. But it is the same flexibility with the plans. We want to get heads turning and draw students to the dining commons. Students in Pondside 2 and off-campus are not required to have a plan, as before.”
The application process is expected to be opening up soon under a new system.
“We’ve just been building our meal plan application using StarRez, such as for housing,” Ferrell went on. “Next week, it will be open to do the meal plan applications.”
This will be the first time in years that the meal plans have changed.
“We’ve had the same structure since around 2019,” Ferrell said. “We like to keep them for a number of years to see trends and how they’re performing.”
Patrick Friley, the resident district manager for KSC Dining, further explained the reasoning behind the changes.
“Inflation is a huge thing right now,” Friley said. “We didn’t want to pass that on to students, so we reconstructed the meal plan.”
Bobbie Walker, the regional director of operations at Chartwells, explained how Chartwells handles changes in meal plans across different college campuses.
“Every Chartwells account has a very different system,” Walker said. “For meal plans, it’s unique. Each campus has a different thing with how they are structured. It makes it hard to compare them.”
Students will have these four options to choose from in regards to meal plans going forward.
Chloe Erno can be contacted at
