The dormitory of Miryang Campus was supposed to provide a “quick meal” from September as an alternative to the abolition of breakfast. However, The unit price was too high compared to the quality of the meal, so students are still complaining.

On August 23rd, The dormitory of Miryang Campus posted an “Announcement and Application for Breakfast (quick meal) for the second semester in the dormitory of Miryang Campus” on the website.  From September 1st to December 20th, 77 meals on weekdays will be provided as quick meals such as milk, bread, cereal, salad, and eggs. The dormitory abolished breakfast due to financial difficulties last semester (Reported by “Channel PNU” on May 19th).

Students living in the dormitory agreed with breakfast again, but disagreed with the price (unit price of 3,320 won, total 255,640 won). It means the price is too high despite the availability of a quick meal. Students left comments such as “Sandwiches and Cereals for 250,000 won?”, “It’s not reasonable.” on PNU Everytime, the students’ anonymous online community. 

   Wang Ho-Jin (Dept. of Bio-Industrial Machinery Engineering, 22), who applied for a quick meal, said, “At this price, I can add triangle kimbap to ramen. It was so expensive that I was worried about applying.” An anonymous student A (Dept. of Life Science and Environmental Biochemistry, 19), who didn’t apply for breakfast, said, “I didn’t apply because I thought the quality of food provided for the price was too bad. It’s unreasonable that the price for quick meals is almost the same as the price for a meal.”

As the number of students who applied for a quick meal decreased,  the unit price rose to 3,600 won, and the total amount rose to 277,200 won.  This is because the dormitory expected 150 students to apply for the first time, but 56 students, less than half, applied. As a result, only 46 students will have breakfast and pay the adjusted price. 

The dormitory explained that it is difficult to operate the cafeteria due to the small number of applicants on campus. Currently, The price is reasonable to manage the labor costs with 46 applicants. Son Hye-Young, the nutritionist of the dormitory, said, "We are providing a quick meal for students although applicants didn’t reach the minimum number. We tried to do everything we could, such as reducing the number of cooks.”

The dormitory will provide a quick meal this semester, but it is also considering re-providing breakfast next year. Nutritionist Son said, "As the budget was planned every year, I couldn’t revive breakfast immediately, so I decided to provide a quick meal. We will investigate the opinions in detail this semester and decide whether to make breakfast again next year.”

Reporter Kim Min-Sung

Translated by Park Yeon-Hee