There is something special about walking into your dining hall for lunch on a Monday afternoon. Class just ended, you have work to get done and hope to sit down and enjoy a casual lunch. As you walk into the dining hall and get your food, you say hello to the familiar staff, wave to your friends and navigate to a table you have most likely sat at many times before. In the hustle and bustle of my day, I cherish the retreat into my dining hall. But for students like me, this option will soon be unavailable. 

In a recent development, five residential college dining halls will no longer serve hot lunch following spring break. Instead, Timothy Dwight, Pierson, Davenport, Jonathan Edwards and Trumbull will begin serving what Yale Hospitality calls “Power Lunch,” a toned down service consisting of sandwiches and salads. In doing so, Yale continues to threaten the residential college experience that makes it so special — unfairly limiting dining options for the roughly 33 percent of undergraduates who call these colleges home.

Yale brands the residential college system as the “cornerstone of Yale College’s mission…offering students a sense of intimate social and intellectual connection.” This is absolutely true: students spend mealtimes in their college dining halls, long afternoons in their college libraries and late nights at their college butteries. The more time students spend in their college, the closer they feel to it and its members. Mealtime is a critical part of this connection, providing a home for dining. Eliminating the hot lunch options at colleges works against this mission. Without up to par lunch options, students in the impacted residential colleges are likely to go elsewhere for lunch, limiting engagement with their college. 

It is no surprise which colleges were chosen to lose their hot lunch; Pierson, Davenport, Timothy Dwight and Jonathan Edwards are already perceived as “out of the way” colleges, while Trumbull is the smallest college on campus. By cutting the lunch of these colleges, Yale only further enforces a college hierarchy. Regardless of which college students are randomly placed in before freshman year, they should receive similar amenities, especially ones as critical as meals. Yale spent years equalizing the funds and amenities of its 14 residential colleges; why create an unequal student experience now?

In an email to the News, Yale Hospitality explained they are making the changes to “adjust service levels to align with evolving demand and utilization across campus.” Presumably, it is costly for Yale Hospitality to operate full service dining halls during the less trafficked lunch hours. Many students choose to eat at the Commons dining hall, Bow Wow or Elm, which takes away critical meal swipes from the residential colleges. Yet, Yale should not jeopardize a key aspect of the residential college experience and perpetuate college hierarchies all to save cash. 

In 2024, Yale Hospitality’s expenses were $88.9 million while Yale’s total operating budget was $6.7 billion. The year saw Yale net $118 million, meaning the University had that money left over after expenses were paid. When Yale Hospitality cuts lunch options, they will save a couple million dollars a year. For such a small line item in such a large budget, is the bean counting really worth it? Probably not. If Yale Hospitality absolutely must cut costs, it should prepare less food in the impacted colleges to account for the lower demand instead of cutting the hot lunch service altogether. 

For the students who chose to escape crowded Commons or skip the long Bow Wow lines, five dining halls will soon lack hot lunch. The remaining seven dining halls will get busier and tables will increasingly be harder to snag. Cutting hot lunch might seem like a minor adjustment, but it chips away at what makes the residential college system so special. If the University truly values the sense of community it promotes, they should invest in strengthening it — not slowly undermining college dining to save money. If Yale can afford to keep hot lunch, it should.  

JOSHUA DANZIGER is a first year in Trumbull College. His monthly column “Power” explores geography, demography and the state. He also occasionally writes about Yale. Joshua can be reached at joshua.danziger@yale.edu.