USC Hospitality has more than doubled the price of the required apartment meal plan to $1,975 per semester. The new Flex120 Plan will replace the existing baseline meal plan starting this fall for sophomores, juniors and seniors living in USC Housing apartments.
The Flex120 Plan includes 120 meal swipes that can be used at all residential dining halls and most Ronald Tutor Campus Center restaurants, as well as $150 dining dollars. The current apartment meal plan costs $835 per semester, with 40 residential dining hall swipes and $150 dining dollars.
The information — first reported by Tomoki Chien in Morning, Trojan — was recently updated on the USC Hospitality website. Clarice Kim, a freshman majoring in aerospace engineering, said that she discovered the cost of the baseline apartment meal plan cost while applying for housing today.
“I was shocked to see that today,” Kim said. “I was expecting to get something not as expensive this semester because I’ll be cooking a lot for the most part. It’s kind of crazy to see how much the apartment plan is kind of inflated.”
Freshman Julio Gallegos, a real estate finance and development major, said that after his first semester at USC, he “got tired of the dining halls” and upgraded to the more expensive Trojan plan which includes $3,385 dining dollars and 60 dining hall swipes per semester.
“I feel like giving the option of having either the cheaper or more expensive plan would have been better. But forcing it on people is just annoying overall,” Gallegos said.
The Flex120 Plan will bring some changes for USC apartment residents. According to Morning, Trojan, each meal swipe now costs $15 instead of $17. Additionally, swipes will be available at most restaurants at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) in the fall, whereas the current plan’s swipes are exclusive to dining halls.
Heba Aboul Hosn, a freshman majoring in public policy, said that the inclusion of the TCC restaurants doesn’t change her feelings about the new meal plan.
“I like the TCC restaurants a lot, but if I can be paying things out of pocket, why do I have to be obligated to do it through a plan?” Aboul Hosn said. She added that next semester she doesn’t plan on visiting the dining halls even though she will be living in a USC apartment.
“If I have a kitchen, I don’t feel the need to go to the dining hall. I’d rather go down and get more whole foods and cook something myself,” Aboul Hosn said. “But if you’re gonna tell someone that they have to do this plan, I don’t think it’s fair, because I’d rather spend $2,000 buying actual groceries instead.”
Kim said she is excited to live in the USC apartments next school year to cook for herself and prioritize her health, but the price tag of this new meal plan has added “a pressure to exhaust” the meal swipes.
The announcement of the new plan marks the first major price hike and benefits change since the USC Village Dining Hall opened in 2017 when the apartment plan cost $630 per semester.
Each year, the university bumps up the price of its meal plans. The apartment plan’s price increased by $80 last year. Effective this fall, the plan will cost an additional $2,280 for the school year.