1. Boost retention
The strategy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst: Feed them for free. Since 2005, parents of students on a meal plan have been able to eat with them in a dining hall anytime, on the house. The university serves 6 million meals per year, and comp meals represent 1% of that total.
The roughly $180,000 dedicated to those meals yearly is accounted for in the annual budget—and pays dividends in the school’s meal-plan retention rate, according to Executive Director of Auxiliary Services Ken Toong. His philosophy is that while students are the customer, parents are the bank.
UMass Amherst boasts a four-year meal plan retention rate over 80%, and maintaining that is key to the program’s $120 million in annual revenue, Toong says.
“They say you’ve got to spend money to make money,” Toong says. “In higher education, we are not in the business of making money—we are self-supporting—but we have to find a way to build our business and invest. When you have more students on the meal plan, you can spread out your fixed cost. The cost to us is so minimal compared to the revenue and goodwill we are able to generate.”