Ethical Question

That's weird. At my school, we used to use disposable plastic 4oz cups to measure and portion stuff for our recipes. Then one day they were replaced with 4oz ceramic ramekins. They justified the change by saying it was more Eco-friendly to wash them (wasting more water on our overall dishes) than using disposables. I get that the ramekins are a "one-time" purchase, but the amount of water used didn't offset or balance it in my opinion.

 

school is school and there gonna take money from u whether u like it or not....!!! They make u pay for the dumbest shit raise tuition and still have the audacity to argue with u... aghh.. but to be honest dosent justify taking that shit... thats just my 2 cents..

 

Entitled is what more than likely started the fee to begin with.
Granted meal plans are expensive from what I remember a long time ago, but conversely food & the overhead to run a dining facility is more expensive.

I have eaten in a ton of military dining/mess/chow halls & things like this seem to self police themselves. Someone is ultimately responsible for answering to a budget, supply, administrator explaining why the trays/dining ware is dissappearing. As a CO or Food Svc NCO, you might get charged for the shortfall. If you have a good supply guy probably not but utlimately.....there is no free lunch.

To answer your question, I would highly discourage my friends from stealing since personally I do not believe in it. Addressing the issue through your student association may help, hold a huge amnesty day where people bring the stuff back no questions asked? Just an idea.

 

Good suggestions. The fee doesn't bother me, its just $50 included in the $2500 a semester. We get around $400 to use for food and we get half price

 

Stealing is stealing. Your classmates who are stealing this stuff are stealing from the rest who do not. Its like the higher prices we pay for consumer products and insurance because of theft and fraud. It would be interesting to see the books and find out the budget for plates and utensils. also, how much of this is actually being stolen by the dining hall staff? I have heard that stainless steel pots and pans from commercial kitchens are really expensive, and the recycle places don't ask questions. If you steal 1 set of cutlery a day for a week you probably have a bout a pound of SS, do that for an entire semester and you probably have a good amount of SS. Ask your roommates to steal their SS and look how that compounds. A good stunt would be to have every one steal all of their SS and return it on the LAST day of the semester, but it would have to be every last piece.
The argument could be Prove the charge is valid, then we will pay for it. Another test situation could be If every one stopped stealing then would the school have the honesty to withdraw the fee?

 

Google it.....

 

If you ever want a job that requires a security clearance or polygraph, $50 in silverware will seem pretty petty. I'd rather not have a guilty conscious (even if you think you can justify it in your mind as not stealing, your subconscious won't).

 

This is easy. The way the poll is posed, it is wrong - stealing outright is wrong.

However, if they make you pay in advance for $50 worth, it isn't anymore - you paid $50!

The real guilty party in your case is the school - it is wrong to charge a fee for being unable to police kids stealing! Have they heard of cameras?

And as far as the "schools are typically reasonable...", I just graduated. Maybe they used to be reasonable, but my school tried to screw me for every penny I had on a regular basis. They charged for transcripts, they tried to force fraternities (who provide their own kitchen & cooks to members) to join the school mealplan, they tried to force kids who lived offcampus to have a mealplan, etc etc etc. Assholes. They charged us $100 to RENT a cap and gown!

Some of this would be OK (charging for transcripts, cap and gown) except they already had exorbitant tuition. If you're saying "you should have gone somewhere else" in retrospect I agree, but it was too late.

 

The restaurant doesn't charge you $5 for "lost items".

I would agree completely if the school didn't charge a "lost items" fee, which is utter horseshit. If they have a problem with theft, penalizing everybody is itself an immoral way to deal with it.

 

The dining halls are rarely as expensive as the school makes them out to be. Yes, costs are higher when you have to keep everything up to code, set up the system to charge everyone, hire cooks, get the food itself, etc, but at least at my school they still made out just fine.

How do I know? The individually run (fraternity and sorority) kitchens could charge much less for an operational kitchen (as in, 1/2 or 1/3 the cost of the school mealplan) per capita. They do have lower costs (fewer people to hire, less kitchen space to maintain) but they also have wayyyy fewer people funding the operation. And the food was better!

 

Look at you and your big fancy cooking school words.

 

Stealing is bad mmmkay...

 

Thanks guys for all the good arguments here! I have intentionally withheld my view so I could leave it unbiased. But this is what I think:

I think the school is just full of shit now. They have raised tuition twice since I have been here, but each semester they keep making classes bigger and bigger, and offer fewer classes. It is not easy trying to learn to be an engineer when your smallest class is 200 people. All while they are sacrificing our acedemic prestiege, they are building tons of new buildings on campus, including a new "Basketball Practice facility" in place of athletic facilities that were for use by the general student body only.

So it does bug me that they are trying to squeeze every penny possible out of me, while at the same time screwing me over.

But as pointed out earlier, if I got caught taking stuff:
1. I would get in ATON of trouble with the school
2. Jeopardizes future opportunities (ie. security clearance).

So basically, I donot take anything from the cafeteria (except for hot sauce once by accident) however I understand where my friends argument is coming from.

 

I think what ya'll have to realize is that germ doesn't go to a small school. His school has around 25,000 students, and I'm guessing that at least half are on a meal plan.

So, 12,500 students x $50/head = $625,000 for stolen goods from the cafe's in a semester.

I'm calling bullshit on that amount.

The students are essentially paying for $50 worth of shit from the cafeteria.

 

It's an interesting argument...

Under normal circumstances, taking the silverware is wrong because you're not paying for it. Since the school has gone through the trouble to actually assume that each student will take an average of $50 dollars of items, and therefore charge them the fee, it is hard to see it as not paying for it.

If they just averaged the cost into their pricing, then it would be no contest. It just seems odd that they broke it out into a separate cost, they seem to be somewhat condoning it by doing so. To me by adding the charge, they're expecting you to, and therefore couldn't consider it reprehensible since you've paid the fee.

 

Obviously, too many meathead take too much stuff that doesn't belong to them on a regular basis, or you wouldn't have the $50.00 tacked on in the first place.

I'm sure if it wasn't a chronic issue with people who have a hard time understanding the general rules of good behavior, the usual amounts of stuff would be figured in at a much smaller dollar amount and counted in as a 'cost of doing business' instead of the classification that has been attached to this $50.00 fee.

 

bingo, i agree completely

here's how i see it, them losing money due to lost items is not my problem, its theirs. if i'm not stealing stuff, then why should i get charged for others who do? instead of charging each student $50 they could install security cameras or keep a campus security guard in there during the busy hours (lunch etc...). but to charge someone for something they didn't do is unethical. or maybe if you get caught taking stuff, you get charged $50 per meal plan for as long as you are at the college. but dont charge the innocent. if i get charged for something i didn't take, you better be damn sure i'm gonna take it. i dont give money away for nothing. its a bullshit charge and i'd be sure to get my money's worth

 

yeah, but is this stealing? they took his money for something he didn't do and he got nothing in return. in my opinion, that is stealing. all he's doing is taking what the school is charging him for. if its one sided its stealing, if its two sided, its a transaction.

so basically, you're question is not one of ethics, but more of a "is it worth it to get even" kind of thing, in which case i would say, no. yes you are getting screwed and i dont think taking stuff would be unethical, but prolly not worth the trouble if you got busted.

having said that, i can relate to your pain. I went to Clemson and they have been relentlessly pursing that whole "top 20" school thing. anyway, in the two years i went to Clemson tuition rose something like 73%. i cant remember the exact number but it was roughly a 75% increase in just 3 years and not a single solitary semester passed that tuition didn't raise at least 5%, most times by more. this raise in tuition was so that they could make the school better and faculty better and blah blah blah so they could finally be in the top 20. but in all that time of paying more, the services at clemson decreased. more students, less teachers, less parking, shuttles ran less frequently, less student jobs, etc... basically, the school wanted more money and that was teh bottom line. it wasn't going to improve anything except to add the west end to our football stadium. so what i'm saying is, the school is gonna milk as much as possible out of you and they will find a million different ways to nickel and dime you saying its for improvements, tehn you will never see those improvements.

 

I seriously doubt even 1/4 of the campus population utilize the cafeterias. A good starting place to estimate size is how many people the dorms can hold. Those students are very likely to be on meal plans but even then not all will. Students who live off campus are not likely to have purchased meal plans. For example at my university (comparably sized), the cafeteria serves about 1300 students per day with a total student population of over 27,000 (about 4.8%). Not all of those students will be on meal plans either as some pay cash at the door. That would put the loss at less than $65,000 for the year.

 

I'm just going by the fact that all freshman are probably living on campus (there are typically more in a freshman class than any other class)

plus upper classmen might have the basic meal plan if they're on campus for 6 straight hours.