Where my cheese at?: High-end meals and low-end wages

A couple of weeks ago one of the major college food service contractors, put out a press release comparing the top 10 campus "food trends" of 2009 to those of 1989.  Intended to highlight the increasing sophistication of student diners, the contrasts are decidedly unsubtle:  The #1 spot on the 2009 list went to "Locally-grown fruits and veggies," where the students of 1989's top priority is listed as simply "Fruit and Cottage Cheese Plate." Where their predecessors wanted "Chicken Chop Suey," today's students are expecting "Vietnamese Pho" and eschewing the "Egg, Bacon and Cheese English Muffin" in favor of "Green Tea and Pomegranate Smoothies."

This is not to say there isn't a significant reality behind this comparison.  Student food movements devoted to best taste, best health and best practices have drawn a great deal of attention to ethical and quality issues in campus dining. Students in 2009 seem to value their food in more complex and complete ways than they have in the past.

Well, at the very least, they're paying a lot more for it.

The standard undergraduate meal plan at Harvard cost $4982 this year.  In 1987, it cost $2036. Adjusting for inflation, that means today's Harvard student is paying over 30% more than her Chop-Suey-loving predecessor[1]. A student at Florida State paid 24% more for a 2009 standard meal plan than he would have for the 1990 version. Nationally, between 1989 and 2009, room and board rates increased 35% at private institutions and 50% at public ones.

Given the lack of an effective outcry for major price reductions and a return to 1989's "Chicken Nuggets" and "Taco Bar," it seems reasonable to assume that these price increases are to some extent reflecting (or at least being off-set by) an increased overall investment in the quality of student dining. Flashy menu items can only be part of the story, though. While students may be paying more and expecting more from their cafeterias than they did 20 years ago, how much has changed on the other side of the counter? Is food service work being valued any differently?

Adjusted for inflation, the average wage in the food service industry has increased just 8% since 1990. The "food trends" press release characterizes today's college diners as worldly individuals whose "creative palates" demand a higher level of "culinary literacy" from those who are feeding them, yet, relative to the average US hourly income, the pay of food service workers at the end of 2008 remained exactly where it was at the beginning of 1990: 48% below average.

So, as board rates climb ever higher and dining hall menus move toward Nepalese petit-fours and cage-free caviar, it remains to be seen whether the way we value our food will come to include the way we value the people who make it.

[1] Even with last year's spike in food prices, the increase in the CPI since  the late '80s is greater than the change in food prices over the same period.