Are You Out of Caf Money?
Tensions run high as we near the end of the semester. Students spend late nights in the library or beit midrash completing projects, writing papers and cramming information for exams, regretting all the class time they previously spent zoning out or writing Commentator articles. It’s crunch time.
But the stress is not solely academic. For some students, looming finals signify the looming depletion of their meal plan funds. They keep the YU One Card website bookmarked on their search engines, flipping back to the page throughout the day, nervously tracking how many meals they have left until their caf money hits that dreaded $0. The same question is heard reverberating through the hallways, stairwells and dorm rooms; it is whispered from student to student, ringing with a sense of urgency and mutual distress: “Are you out of caf money?”
The current meal plan prices per semester are $650 for the non-resident plan, $1,975 for the low plan, $2,300 for the standard plan and $2,575 for the high plan. These rates — along with caf food prices — have risen every year, at a rate exceeding the expected rise due to inflation. For example, a cup of coffee in the caf rose from $3.50 last year to $4.50 this year.
All resident plans are well in excess of what the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates an average individual would spend on food over the course of a 15-week semester, even considering a liberal spender. Thus, one would expect that students can meet all of their food needs through the caf. Yet research suggests that if YU students want to make it to the end of the semester without running out of funds, they must either add money to the already expensive plan or supplement with food from other sources.
Figure 1. Data from YU’s Undergraduate Financial Aid & Tuition and U.S. Inflation Calculator. Increase in meal plans since 2021 as compared to the expected rise given inflation.
For some students, supplementing at least one meal a day outside of the caf is how they get by. Tali Novick (SCW ‘27) buys two meals at the caf each day. For breakfast she brings her own yogurt and banana, which she buys from the fruit guy at the corner of 34th St. and Park Ave. There she can buy four bananas for just $1, the price of one banana in the caf. She very rarely spends Shabbos in Stern, and she is on the low meal plan. “I think I’ll make it to the end of the semester, with budgeting,” Novick shared with The Commentator.
Galit Roth (SCW ‘27) has a similar story. She only buys two meals a day, and she has simple taste. Lunch is often a bagel and soup — a very economical choice at the caf — coming out to only $6.75. Although she lives in Silver Spring, MD, she rarely stays in for Shabbos. In Roth’s words, “Baruch Hashem, people invite me a lot.” Roth says that she has enough money to make it to the end of the semester.
But for people who either stay in for Shabbos, or rely on the caf for all of their meals, even the relatively high meal plans just don’t cut it. Yishai Gross (YC ‘28) stays in YU for Shabbos and relies on the caf for all of his meals. He is on the standard meal plan, but has run low on funds at the end of every semester.
“The caf prices are very steep,” Gross told The Commentator. “It’s not easy to find healthy food that is cheap enough to afford for the entire semester. We’re either forced to spend all of our caf money quickly on food that’s good for us, or we can save by eating pizza and junk food all semester.”
Tova Berger (SCW ‘27) did the math, and for someone like herself who regularly goes home for Shabbos but relies on the caf for food on weekdays, the low meal plan affords $7 per meal, per day. Even if you buy cheaper breakfast and lunch, you will probably not have enough to consistently buy one of the main dinner entrees, which range from $15 to $18. For context, dinner at the caf costs roughly the same as a burger at Holy Schnitzel. Berger commented, “This isn’t a restaurant. This is where we live.”
There are currently 216 members on a WhatsApp chat titled “Caf Daddy” circling the Beren community, where students in need of extra caf money can ask for someone to cover their meal. The person covering a meal (read: the caf daddy) will typically be a student who cooks in her apartment or spends a lot of time at home, but is nonetheless required to pay for a full resident meal plan.
Minna Katz (SCW ‘26), for example, recently decided to find healthier food options and prefers to prepare her own meals rather than buy from the caf. She treats the caf as a convenient place to occasionally buy a yogurt or the salmon lunch, but procures the majority of her food from other sources. At the end of the semester, she is left with an excess amount of money on her caf card.
While there are others like Katz who have far more money than they need for the semester, there are many students who are merely scraping by on what they have. Representative polling suggests that a vast majority of people on the “Caf Daddy” chat are in fact “in need of a caf daddy” as opposed to themselves “a caf daddy.”
This isn’t surprising. Suppose a student buys a coffee ($4.50), a 16 oz salad ($12.80, at $0.80/oz) and a dinner entree with two sides ($18) every weekday — excluding Fridays — and doesn’t stay in school for Shabbos. At the end of the semester, this student will be at a $122.50 deficit — on the highest meal plan.
The caf is a wonderful resource for the YU student body. The caf workers prepare a variety of nutritious and tasty options on a consistent basis, a service which many Orthodox students at secular colleges do not enjoy. But unless caf prices become more affordable, it will not be a sustainable source of food for many YU students.
Photo Caption: Kushner Dining Hall
Photo Credit: Elza Koslowe
