When news of the possible third-year meal plan requirement broke this past week, students were infuriated, and rightly so. In case you didn’t hear news from any campus news source whatsoever, GUSA announced in a press release that the administration is considering implementing a third-year meal plan requirement.

While the most obvious reason for doing this is to boost revenue, my inner conspiracy theorist doesn’t buy it. The university can’t seriously be considering this plan — that they had to know would outrage students — without some ulterior motive. And 4E is here to wildly speculate about what those motives could be.

To distract students from the massive impending construction Unfortunately, this Monday, the East Reiss pathway and Leavey bridge will be closed indefinitely due to construction. By introducing this ridiculous meal plan proposal, the administration was clearly trying to pull students’ attention away from the construction to this new annoying university endeavor. Then, when the meal proposal magically doesn’t pass, we’ll all feel a sense of victory as we inconveniently walk around the west side of Reiss without complaint.

The university seriously screwed up their budget With the cost of the new HFSC and Northeast Triangle construction, financial constraints have to be pretty high right now. They’re probably too embarrassed to try to solicit more alumni donations, and so they have to resort to literally siphoning money from current students. Probably the most likely explanation.

They’re using this to cover up some other thing that students would get more upset about This is the best conspiracy theory because it’s open-ended. Maybe UIS is responsible for hacking Snapchat? Just think of all the stories we don’t know about because we’re all up in arms about this new proposal instead of looking for another piece of journalistic gold.

And now you know what went through my mind when I heard this news.

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