New Meal Plan System Announced for Fall 2025

At an Association of Amherst Students (AAS) meeting on March 31, Director of Dining Services Bill Connor presented a new meal plan structure that will go into effect in Fall 2025. The new structure includes more options for plans in terms of the number of meals per week and more guest swipes for all options, as well as adding Dining Dollars to each meal plan, which can be used in cafes, vending machines, and the Mammoth Market.

The five new meal plan options include the Mammoth Plan which allows unlimited meal swipes per week, the Purple 19, the Amherst 15, the Flexible 10 (allowing 19, 15, and 10 swipes per week, respectively), and the Off Campus Plan, which allows 100 swipes per semester.

All meal plans will be the same price, only differing by the amount of Dining Dollars included each semester — $100 for the Mammoth Plan, $150 for the Purple 19, $250 for the Amherst 15, and $400 for the Flexible 10 and the Off Campus Plan. All plans also include five Grab & Go swipes per week and eight guest swipes per semester.

AAS Senator Shane Dillon ’26 said the change was “a step in the right direction considering we’ve been operating on [a] singular [plan] for so long” and agreed with the reasoning behind the options not being tiered by price.

“[Connor] explained that the financial model of the college is built in a way that looks to prevent inequity, so it isn’t the case that wealthier students are able to ‘pay more and get more’ than, say, a student on full financial aid,” Dillon said. “This rationale made sense to me, so I feel like the Dining Dollars are a good start.”

Connor said that the proposed changes are based on data gathered from a survey that Dining Services sent to students last semester. Students shared where they were on campus during different times of the day, where they ate during the day, how many meal swipes they wanted, and how many dining dollars they thought they would spend. A total of 708 students responded to the survey, with 38% indicating that they wanted 15-20 meals per week and 35.3% preferring eight to 14 meals per week.

“The new meal plans were designed to address concerns such as dining dollar funds being available with all plans to allow students to purchase a la carte in retail cafes such as Frost Library, Mammoth Market, and the Science Center,” Connor said. “The meal plans were also designed to grow with students and make dining more accessible based on the needs of the student.”

As an example of how the new plans cater to students’ different needs, Connor mentioned that the Flexible 10 allows a student to have more dining dollars to spend in the Science Center Cafe if their academic focus is research intensive. On the other hand, students who prefer having multiple meals a day could continue to benefit from the Mammoth Plan.

All freshmen will be automatically enrolled in the Mammoth Plan, but after their first year, students will be able to switch meal plans during each billing period. Connor hoped this would help incoming students adjust to college and reduce possible confusion. AAS Senator Phuong Doan ’26 agreed with Connor on this point, especially when considering that 25% of the class of 2029 are first-gen students.

“I think those people often have a lot less information and understanding [of] how you navigate college,” Doan said. “So being able to give them the baseline of [eating] anytime you want, I think that’s a good idea to help them accommodate [to] college life.”

Doan suggested that allowing freshmen to switch plans sooner, perhaps after their first semester here, could be helpful since students would already have developed a better understanding of their routines then, but also wanted to see how the new structure plays out first. “Next year, I would like to hear [the freshmen’s] thoughts, particularly when they interact with their upperclassmen friends who have different meal plans,” Doan added.

Another new change to the meal plan is that each swipe, whether in Val or Grab & Go, will now place a temporary restraint on swipe access for 30 minutes, during which students will not be able to swipe again into Val. Connor said this measure is intended to reduce congestion at Val, as an estimated 75% of students swipe in during peak hours and struggle to find tables.

Connor added that changes to the meal plan were designed with the new Student Center & Dining Commons (SCDC) in mind. Set to open in Fall 2026, the SCDC will feature an additional cafe, a Grab & Go style Late Night with more meal swipes available in the future, and a convenience store with kitchen essentials for students who want to cook.

Connor and his team are also developing a mobile ordering app, a partnership with Grubhub where students can use AC Dollars in addition to credit cards to order delivery at discount prices, and sick meal orders that allows sick students to have friends pickup their meals. The team is also considering installing self-order kiosks so the cashier can be re-deployed to help assemble food. All these additions are still “in the works” for the fall, according to Connor.

“As we build these systems over the next few months we will have more to share,” Connor said. “We are working with [having] GrubHub on campus in the fall to share more on how this works and the perks of being an Amherst student with this new partnership.”