Stop UAB's Mandatory Meal Plan

We the students of UAB, are opposed to the mandatory meal plan to go into affect campus-wide the 2006-2007 school year because of, but not limited to, the following reasons;

1)Professional and Graduate students are not required to pay.
2)On-campus students have kitchens available to them (like Blount Hall) or can (and do) rent refrigerators.
3)Off-campus students eat at their places of residence.
4)Many students save money by eating at home, bringing lunch, or not eating at all because of the skyrocketing price of an education.
5)Students are currently paying for the Campus Recreation Center, high gas prices, and a 2\% increase in tuition (tuition going up every year for nearly a decade).
6)Although a few years ago the administration sought the advice of the students, those students have now graduated and we are the ones who have to pay for their wants. This is taxation without representation. We were not represented when student forums were held because we were not here at the time. Why should future generations be punished for the desires of the previous?
7)Many non-traditional students have families that they provide for and a meal plan is a burden. How can administration expect these families to travel 10 plus miles to school, eat at UAB, and then travel home to provide meals for their family?

We ask the following of the administration:

1)Host student forums to get the opinoins of the students.
2)If we must pay then make it fair and make ALL students pay and not just undergraduates.
3)Create exceptions for students who are finacially unable to pay or for those in which paying for a meal plan is unreasonable (students that buy groceries or have families to provide for).
4)Stop the mandatory meal plans if the contract has not been signed.
5)Inform students about the new plan. We recognize and appreciate the efforts of putting it online but it would be easier for students to understand by talking to knowledgeable people, face to face, via question and answer sessions.

All we want is a campus that is more effective to the needs of the students. Because the majority of students already have more convient and affordable ways of eating, we find the forced meal plans to be unnecessary and very authoritarian. Please hear the concerns of the students, the ones who make UAB possible and the ones who keep UAB running through our own hard-earned funds.