URI Dining Services has reduced the share of items that students can purchase using Dining Dollars in the Corner Store for the 2026-2027 school year.
Students are no longer able to purchase “pantry staples” with Dining Dollars, according to Dining Services. This includes dry goods, sauces, spices and ramen. Frozen foods, along with health and beauty products, have been added to the list of items that must now be purchased with RAM Account, cash or credit/debit cards.
Students were not notified of this change prior to the start of the semester. Flyers listing the changes to the Dining Dollar-eligible items have been posted around the Corner Store, and the lists can also be found in the FAQ section of the Dining Services website.
The changes have yet to be emailed to students in writing or posted on the Dining Services social media. Many students found out through Instagram stories posted on the @rhodybluntmag account.
“Our buying power’s being zapped away, even at our own campus, with no notification, and it’s absolutely horrifying,” third-year student Lilac Enos-Fugere said. “We’ve been trying to call them out on their lack of care for students’ well-being, and they have seemed very unreceptive to that thus far.”
Pierre St-Germain, Director of Dining Services, said that their division of Student Affairs is fully aware that they did not properly advertise the changes to students.
“Part of what students like is the ability to make their own decisions,” St-Germain said. “It was not the intention to take that decision away from students.”
St-Germain said that Dining Services analyzed the share of Dining Dollars spent on certain items in order to make this change.
“We went through, and believe it or not, pantry items were one of the lowest things that students actually spent Dining Dollars on,” St-Germain said. “Students spent more money on Red Bull than they did on pantry items last year.”
Dining Services has redirected students to the Rhody Outpost Food Pantry if they feel that their dietary and nutritional needs are not being met by the Corner Store.
“More than just food-insecure individuals need dry goods,” Enos-Fugere said.
Second-year Maya Schiess, who lives on campus with an unlimited meal plan, said the redirection was an insult to injury.
“Putting all of that onto Rhody Outpost is crazy,” Schiess said. “Telling people to just go to the food pantry is lazy.”
St-Germain said that students who are not experiencing food insecurity are welcome to attend the unlimited dining halls or apply to work for Dining Services if they are looking for a job on campus.
“We feed our students, so there’s always an option of actually working for your meal,” St-Germain said.
Despite Dining Services’ claims that they hope to make this change as painless as possible for students, Schiess said she still feels betrayed.
“This is definitely altering the way I view the Corner Store as a business and a resource,” Schiess said. “This is cartoonishly evil.”
St-Germain said that approximately 80% of the items in the Corner Store can still be purchased with Dining Dollars, including breakfast items, protein bars, fresh fruit and eggs.
“We’re not necessarily trying to take an action that cuts off student access to things,” St-Germain said.
Enos-Fugere, who is also the secretary of URI’s Young Democratic Socialists Association chapter, said the only way for Dining Services to properly respond to student reaction is by being receptive to communication from student groups like the senate and reinstating students’ buying power.
“People need food,” Enos-Fugere said. “They can control the currency.”
