Students who purchase meal plans will have to pay 7 percent in state sales tax beginning next fall, ending a 50-year tax exemption on school meals. The tax will add more than $50 in cost to the average meal plan.
The Mississippi State Tax Commission originally wanted the tax added to meal plans this fall, but the universities across the state received a one-year extension.
Bruce Crain, Mississippi State University director of financial aid, said the added cost may or may not affect the average cost of financial aid given.
“When factoring meals into financial aid, the average cost of 21 meals per week is considered regardless of where the food is purchased. It is not based on the cost of meal plans,” Crain said.
Crain added that if there is any way the financial aid department can help with the added cost, it will do so.
Currently, students are taxed on food purchased with the daily allowance from meal plans. MSU officials are still not sure how to avoid taxing students twice when they use their daily allowance from their meal plans at establishments that already charge sales tax.
“We currently don’t know exactly how we are going to deal with that,” vice president for finance and administration Ray Hayes said.
The tax on meal plans is just one of the many extra costs students are now facing.
“With the constant rising tuition, and now a 7 percent sales tax, people are going to start wanting to know what exactly the money is going to use for,” said Lynda Hayes, a sophomore majoring in psychology. “Is it going to pay for something to benefit the students?”