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Our university offers its students (from sophomores to seniors) four particular meal plan options, with service available at two specific outlets. First-year students are given no choice in the meal plan they must buy. We conducted a cost analysis of the various alternatives and showed that the choice of the best meal plan option depends on the eating habits of the specific student. Some first-year students appear to be penalized by the specific meal plan they are required to purchase. 1.0 Introduction Food and drink sales comprise a substantial market in the United States (U.S.). In 2002, restaurants earned $407.8 billion in total sales, with more than 54 billion meals consumed. Colleges and universities offer a significant outlet for the sales of these products. In 2002, food and drink sales at such institutions totaled $6.76 billion. Sales for 2003 were projected to growth to $7.23 billion, an increase of roughly 7%. Collegiate students throughout the U.S. have a variety of alternatives to consider when choosing meal options. For those students who prefer to dine at on-campus foodservice outlets, we conducted a cost analysis of meal plan options available at our institution (a private, residential, liberal-arts college in the northeast U.S.). The Dining Services department of our university has an annual budget of $8.3 million and a staff of 119. It serves approximately 1.8 million meals each year. Dining Services offers four distinct meal plan options, with service available at two particular outlets. We feel that our analysis can provide useful assistance to our students in selecting appropriate, costeffective meal plans. The format of our paper is as follows. The next section presents a review of pertinent literature to collegiate foodservice operations. It also describes the use of quantitative models in meal and nutritional analysis. The third section provides a 2 Information obtained from the website of the National Restaurant Association, www.restaurant.org