Rachel Frost – Special to The Southern News –
The North Campus Market has the essentials of a typical convenience store or a corner market, as some say. A place to buy such things as ice cream to cereal to bath tissue to microwavable dinners, not to forget Roberta’s famous cookies which everyone knows are delicious!
Another reason everyone on campus knows about the market is the fact the items are very much priced in a way that drains our food loot. All of these everyday needs costs us students in residents and commuters, $300 food loot. I have bought from the market as a resident on campus, and it is overpriced when you pay for certain items such as the T.G.I
. Friday’s dinners or the basic four pack of bath tissue which is probably much less costly at a typical off-campus corner market; here it costs about $3.45. The Resident District Manager of Chartwells Danny Dawkins said, “The volume sales at a Stop and Shop allow the prices to be discounted; the North Campus store is for convenience and with that is a higher price.”
Although, the prices are set, us students do seem to believe it is just another way of the university trying to take money from us in any way possible, whether we pay with food loot, credit or debit cards, or even cash. Whether the shipment comes in bulk and is priced in a set way, our prices in comparison to a convenience store are outrageous. The typical corner store in New Haven or in Bridgeport costs about half of what it is here. I have come to think of how much I spend in the market as of recent to try and save the $300 we receive in food loot. At times, it does seem that this university tries to take every penny from us whether it’s from tuition and fees or textbooks, the market should at least be of reasonable prices for what they sell considering the economic situations we’re facing.
However, some students, like me, use the convenience of this market to buy some small snacks when hunger strikes. Athalia Smith, a graduate student, doesn’t find it as much of a burden to spend at the market because it’s right in the building, but does express the point how the products are overpriced. “I feel the products are overpriced by half of what they should be,” she said. The least that Chartwells can do is to lower or approximate the prices of the products being sold to those in any other convenience store off-campus, such as the ones on Fitch Street or Pine Rock Avenue.
Many other students who live on campus or commute notice how their food loot or other means of paying in this market does take a toll on their wallets. The fact that it’s three dollars and something cents for a four-pack roll of bath tissue that barely lasts is ridiculous when at any other small corner store is less than it is here. Yes, this is a university and most state schools do charge a ton for what they sell, but if it means paying ten dollars just for two or three items which probably cost less at a Stop and Shop or a small corner market, the market prices here at North Campus are overpriced. Something should be done about it or recognized considering how many students complain about it.
