WVU requires all students living in residence halls to purchase a dining plan. But for first-time freshmen and transfer students who are new to town, choosing a plan can be harrowing.
That’s why The Daily Athenaeum is here to give a guide to on-campus dining based on current students’ eating habits.
“I love food,” Evan Dick, a freshman exercise physiology major and chairperson of the Student Dining Committee, said. “Going after class and going to sit at the Lair with my friends is one of my favorite parts of the day.”
The three meal plans available to students living on campus include the Go 10 Plan, Go 13 Plan and Go Anytime Plan.
Data Visualization by Lara Bonatesta
The Go 10 plan costs $2,531 per semester and includes 10 meal swipes per week and $250 in Dining Dollars. Meanwhile, the Go 13 plan costs $2,747 per semester and includes 13 meal swipes per week and $525 in Dining Dollars. The Go Anytime costs $2,950 per semester, includes unlimited meal swipes and $825 in Dining Dollars.
Meal swipes can be used at dining halls and Park Place, and Dining Dollars can be used at any dining hall or retail location. Students on these plans can also use up to two meal swipes per week to purchase a combo meal at many retail dining locations on campus.
In addition to the Go 10, Go 13 and Go Anytime plans, students living off campus have seven additional options when choosing a meal plan. These include the Prime 20, Prime 48, Prime 75, Prime 190 and several dining dollars-only plans. For these plans, meal swipes and Dining Dollars can be used at residential and retail locations.
Unused dining dollars roll over from the fall to the spring semesters and expire at the end of the academic year.
In 2022, 88% of students with a dining plan had less than $100 in Dining Dollars remaining at the end of the spring semester, according to WVU Dining Services.
Dick, who is currently on the Go 13 meal plan, said he intends to purchase a smaller plan next year when he moves off campus. His biggest advice for incoming students is to “try everything.”
“I just say make sure you try all the options that are provided to you,” he said.
Based on meal swipe usage, the most popular dining halls in both 2022 and 2023 were Café Evansdale, followed by Hatfields then Summit Café, according to WVU Dining Services.
Just The Facts
Most popular retail dining locations ranked in order of popularity based on
recent transactional history:
1. Chick-fil-A (Mountainlair)
2. Lyon’s Den (Lyon Tower in the Evansdale Residential Complex)
3. Panda Express (Mountainlair)
4. Chick-fil-A (Health Sciences)
5. The Market @ Uplace (University Place)
6. WOW American Eats (Evansdale Crossing)
7. Grab & Go (Mountainlair)
8. Starbucks (University Place)
9. Which Wich (Mountainlair)
10. Bit & Bytes (Engineering Sciences Building)
11. Einstein Bros. Bagels (Reynolds Hall)
12. Jazzmans (Mountainlair)
Source: WVU Dining
In the months following the opening of Adobo Cantina in Cafe Evansdale in January, Dining Services also saw an increase in visits to the dining hall from those paying with means other than meal swipes.
“We’ve seen a 30% increase in Evansdale nontraditional meal plan usage. So that’s success to me,” WVU Dining Services District Manager Michael Dahl said.
In order to stay up to date on student dining needs, Dahl also pointed to two recent efforts to streamline communication between students and his team: the student dining committee and MyDTxts.
The student dining committee launched and began having regular meetings this spring. Dick was one of eight students selected out of a group of 747 applicants to serve on the committee. For him, food is a way to connect with friends and family and he hopes the committee will have a positive impact on WVU as a whole.
“We want our program to kind of stand out amongst like schools … it would be cool to have one of those dining programs that people are excited to come to the school for that dining program.”
While Dick has an on-campus meal plan, Dahl pointed out that some members of the committee also have off-campus plans or no plan at all.
“We wanted to give a huge range of students that could participate,” he said. “We have a student that’s working on her Ph.D. that … never had a meal plan … We look where you’re from, what are you studying, where do you live, what’s your meal plan status and what gets you excited about food?”
Applications for the committee will reopen again during the upcoming academic school year.
The MyDTxt service allows students to give feedback to dining services by sending messages to 82257 with the code name of their dining location and receive responses in real time.
“You can’t really pick what textbooks you have to buy, you can’t really pick which parking lot you’re going to go to those types of things. You don’t get to pick which color your room is painted…But you can’t have an impact on a few things immediately, and dining is one of those,” Dahl said.
More information about on-campus dining can be found online at diningservices.wvu.edu.
Dining and Cooking