Hungry Students Put Price First, Health and Taste Second
By Keidy Gómez
Carman Hall Café, where friends are made. Jerlisa Ware, Daisy DeJesus, Courtne Comrie. Photo by Keidy Gomez.
When the food we’re eating is good, we want to continue savoring the moment. Unfortunately for many Lehman students on tight budgets, that happens only once in a blue moon. Even with a new program to cut food costs, most students we talked to said that they choose food that is convenient and affordable over what they actually want to eat, which means they don’t always make healthy choices when it comes to eating on campus.
“I like to go for healthier foods, I don’t like to eat junk food, but, sometimes I go for a pizza,” said Courtne Comrie, a 24-year-old Lehman sophomore who’s majoring in creative writing.
“When I feel naughty, I eat greasy pizza,” said Jerlisa Ware, a 25-year- old Lehman senior, also majoring in creative writing and minoring in education. “When I’m hungry, I eat whatever is available.” Ware often goes to the taco truck on Goulden Avenue outside campus, when she wants something quick to eat and is on the go, but when she feels like having a food adventure she eats halal.
“When I feel naughty, I eat greasy pizza.”
- Jerlisa Ware, Lehman Senior and creative writing major
Students like Ware and Comrie don’t usually savor their food experiences as much on campus, where food is relatively expensive. A soda from Carman Hall Café costs $1.91, while in a bodega it costs only $1.25. Plain pizza costs $2, and a full meal can cost $8 to 10 including a drink and tax. So rather than splurging for taste, more often than not, students on a budget just eat for sustenance.
To help students cut costs a bit, last semester Lehman began offering Dining Dollars, a program that lets students use their student ID card to pay for food. Students can put $25 dollars on their student ID card and they don’t pay tax. If they add $50 dollars they get $2.50 back. The funds, however, expire at the end of every spring semester. Daisy DeJesus, the cashier at the Carman Hall Café, explains it as “a debit card that you can add money [to] and have savings.”
DeJesus herself goes above and beyond to help out students who are trying to make ends meet. “Some students leave their money in the classroom and forget to bring it. I take their name and number and let them pay me later,” she said. “If a friend of mine is hungry and can’t pay, I pay out of pocket for them. I know how hard it is when you are hungry and broke.”
