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The rising cost of college rates has been a headache for families across the nation. However, college tuition is not the only expense expected to increase. Due in part to the high costs of gas, the price of food transportation—and therefore food—has been on the rise. Like consumers, campuses have to deal with the effects that food costs have had on meal plans.

If you're one of the many dorm-residing students subscribing to an on-campus cafeteria plan, especially one with a buffet-style layout,  you can imagine how quickly prices could escalate. Numerous students make it a habit to fill their trays with one of everything…just in case. The quantity of wasted, expensive food has college representatives worried that a  hike in cafeteria prices is inevitable.

Colleges are doing what they can to minimize expected charges, but pricing continues to be a problem. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, some schools have taken to skimping on the amount of ingredients used in each dish while others have managed to save by eliminated cafeteria trays. In an interview with Mr. Simon of Western Washington University, it was reported that, “Western Washington dining halls observed a 34-percent reduction in waste during one week last month when the institution went trayless.”

For students who aren’t fond of dorm food as is, the idea of having to save money to afford it is extremely frustrating. Unfortunately, many students see few alternatives. Unless they can stuff all groceries into a portable, shared fridge, it’s just one more pain to deal with.

Briana G. wants to create a "healthy Twinkie." While completing an Associate's degree in Baking and Pastry Arts, she became concerned about America's obesity epidemic and realized she wanted to learn to craft more forgiving sweets. To help her complete her degree in Food Science and Dietetics at Colorado State University, Scholarships.com has named Briana the 2009 recipient of the annual $1,000 College Culinary Arts Scholarship.

Scholarships.com has been awarding Area of Study College Scholarships since summer 2008 to help students like Briana meet their college and career goals. The competition grants a $1,000 scholarship each month to a high school senior or undergraduate student planning to pursue a career in one of thirteen areas of study, including Culinary Arts.

"These students have such creative ideas and reasons for choosing a particular major and, through this program, we are able to help them share these ideas and aspirations," said Kevin Ladd, Vice President for Scholarships.com. "The Area of Study College Scholarships help students pay for college and also challenge them to really think about why they want to study a given subject or go into a particular field."

Applicants are asked to compose essays describing what influenced their career choices. In her submission, Briana described reconciling her desire to make "delicious, eye-catching desserts" with her growing awareness of how poor diets contribute to obesity. Her goal now it to make healthy version of the "sweet treats that Americans love."

The Scholarships.com Area of Study Scholarships are open to all U.S. citizens who will be attending college in the fall of 2009, regardless of age, test scores or grade point average. To apply for the Scholarships.com Area of Study College Scholarships, students can visit www.scholarships.com, conduct a free college scholarship search and complete an online scholarship application.

A complete list of Area of Study scholarship winners, as well as their winning essays is available on our Student Winners page.

Do you think you could get tricked into eating more healthy foods on campus? A recent article in the Boston Globe describes the strategies being taken by some schools in Massachusetts to get their students eating more nutritious meals and smaller portions, and it has required some sneakiness.

Most of you have probably heard of the "freshman 15," the 15 (or more) pounds that you're at risk of putting on that first year away in college when you're making your own decisions on what to eat. According to the Globe and the Nutrition Journal, recent studies have shown that at least 1 in 4 college freshmen gain an average of 10 pounds in their first semester alone. (That'd make it more like the "freshman 20.") Data like that and an increased awareness of obesity among young people has led schools like Wellesley College, Tufts University, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to take matters into their own hands by shrinking plate sizes and sneaking veggies onto students' plates. And they're not publicizing their methods, as anecdotal evidence has shown that if students are given a choice in whether to eat healthy or not, they'll usually go for the burger and fries.

Elsewhere, schools are doing things like offering miniatures of popular food items (sliders vs. burgers) and substituting fattening ingredients for more low-calories options. Getting students to eat healthy and exercise portion control is made even tougher in cafeterias, where they can often make return trips for second and third helpings with no one there to stop them. “Whatever restraining influences parents might have had when the teenagers were at home are unshackled when kids go off to college,’’ Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital Boston said in the Boston Globe article.

If you're particularly worried about the choices you've been making when eating (or drinking), consider burning off some of those calories. Try to make time for a club sport or a couple hours a week at your schools' gym. Your tuition fees are already paying for your privileges to use their facilities, so you may as well visit them once in a while. And check out our site for options on healthy eating and eating on a budget, another difficult hurdle when you're looking not to order pizza for the third night in a row.

Few foods have become as big a staple in college students' diets as ramen noodles. They're easy enough to make where even the most kitchen-shy college student can heat up a bag and enjoy them while studying for finals or hanging out with friends and lamenting about how they can't afford to order pizza. They're cheap - if you buy in bulk, you could score yours for 10 cents a pack. And they've become a part of the college culture. (Just ask "Stuff College People Like.")

But that doesn't mean they have to be boring. Sure, you may enjoy the simplicity of the instant noodles' traditional flavors: beef, chicken and shrimp. One New York chef, however, has made a name for himself serving up ramen at his East Village restaurant. The dishes David Chang creates are made with homemade noodles, something we don't expect you to try in your dorm room, but it's the flavors and toppings that make his versions stand out - meat that simmers for hours, dried fish and pork, seasoned in a broth that makes the noodles more like a hearty soup. Chang's new book, "Momofuku," gives away his secrets to making the fancy ramen and other dishes that sound delicious but probably aren't as straightforward to put together, like kimchi stew with rice cakes and shredded pork.

So what can you do to spice up your own campus version? You can play with toppings first. If you're a cheese fiend, try some shredded cheddar next time you're about to dive into that bowl of hot chicken-flavored ramen. Drizzle some hot sauce onto your noodles if you like them with a bit of a kick. Or if you're somewhat ambitious, cook up your own vegetables to supplement the crunchy flakes that come in the packages.

You don't need to be a master chef to make do with the things that are probably already in your room or apartment, or to make those college staples like ramen instant noodles more interesting and appetizing. Brows through our site for ideas on not only college cooking and what should be on your grocery list, but eating on a budget. While you probably have more options at college than anywhere else in terms of finding cheap food options, it could be even less expensive to buy things on your own and prepare them the old-fashioned way. If you have access to a kitchen, stock up on the basics like rice and pasta and frozen vegetables and you could be coming up with your own easy (budget) recipes on a regular basis. If you're living in a dorm but have access to a microwave, by all means pick up that ramen.

Following a good deal of criticism and complaints from its student population  and across the state, faculty at Lincoln University of Pennsylvania voted Friday to make the school's mandatory "Fitness for Life" course optional instead. The school came under fire and received a large amount of unwanted media attention over the last few weeks for their requirement that any student who entered the school in 2006 or later and had a Body Mass Index of 30 or greater would be enrolled in a fitness course to lose weight before graduation.

The course didn't receive much attention until this fall because it was the first time administrators had to warn seniors that they were in danger of not graduating if they did not meet the school's fitness requirement. Eighty students were sent emails that they were required to either complete the one-credit course or show they had lost enough weight to make a dent in their BMI before being allowed to graduate. Critics since questioned whether the special graduation requirement was legal and unfairly singled out a population of students.

In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education today, the school's administrators say the requirement will remain in place through the spring semester, and defended the school's initial decision to require a fitness requirement of obese students. Ashley E. Gabb, assistant director of communications at Lincoln University, said in the article that it wasn't the school's intention to have an "adverse effect on students," and that the school remained committed to finding ways to make the student population healthier.

Many schools have programs set up that encourage healthy diets and promoting healthy lifestyles. A number of Massachusetts schools, for example, have been making changes in their dining halls to "sneak" healthy foods past college students. Others also require fitness and physical education requirements. Rollins College, for example, requires three physical education courses of its incoming students, including two terms of elective lifetime recreational activities. (The school offers classes in a wide variety of physical activities, including ballroom dancing, sailing, and weight training.)

A swim requirement is also still popular at many colleges, including Hamilton College, the Washington and Lee University. At many of those schools, students who fail the college's swim test - 10 minutes of continuous swimming, for example, or proof that you can tread water - are required to take a swim class prior to graduation. Most of these schools require some sort of physical education class as part of the general education requirements, so the swim class may count toward that requirement in many cases.

How about your school? What kinds of things is your college doing to make the student population healthier? Do you have  PE requirement? Is this even appropriate to do? Let us know what you think.

If you're worried about how your food allergies will affect your experiences in that dorm cafeteria this fall, you're not alone. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predict the number of allergy sufferers will only continue to grow in the coming years, as record numbers of children with allergies grow up and head onto college campuses. To address the increase in coeds with allergies, many colleges have started to revamp their cafeteria kitchens and menus to make it easier for students to find allergy-free options.

According to the CDC, the number of Americans 18 and younger with allergies is at a record high. About 3 million, or 4 percent, of that age group suffers from food allergies; in 1997, about 2.3 million in that population reported food allergies. About 12 million people of all age groups in the United States have food allergies.

A recent article in USA Today took a look at colleges that have been making changes to their students' dining options. Franklin and Marshall College went nut-free about three years ago. (Nuts are the most problematic and common food allergy. Many places, like elementary schools and airlines, have already banned them from their menus.)  The University of New Hampshire is stocked with gluten-free foods, and its dining halls include cookware used solely in the preparation of gluten-free dishes. (You can't make a food less allergenic by cooking it, by the way.) At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, students are able to determine the exact ingredients in foods available on campus. Eventually, the school plans to run a database that catalogs foods with allergens in them. The College of the Holy Cross allows students interested in the school's meal plans to pre-order their meals via email. The school is also opening an allergy-free kitchen this fall, making it easier for students to eat in the dining hall with their friends.

The article also points to a recent initiative from the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network. Last October, the group premiered its College Network, a database that allows college students to determine who they should contact at schools about their food allergies, and information about colleges that have taken measures to address food allergies. The site also gives tips on dorm living with allergies, determining whether your allergy will affect living with a roommate, and steps to take once you arrive on campus to make sure those around you know about what you're allergic to and what to do if you have an allergic reaction.

The field of culinary arts isn’t easy to break into. Those students who do excel in the kitchen or are interested in paying their dues to work in the food service industry are then eligible for a number of scholarship opportunities to reward them for their talents and hard work.

This week’s Scholarship of the Week opportunity comes from the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation. The organization’s scholarships for first-time freshmen consist of $2,500 awards to go toward the costs of a food service-related program. The awards are merit-based, not need-based, so you will be judged on the quality of your application. If you’re already in college, the organization also awards scholarships to undergraduates; the deadline for those awards is in March.

Prize:

$2,500

Eligibility:

Applicants must be U.S. citizens or permanent resident, first-time freshmen (including graduating high school seniors or GED graduates and high school graduates enrolling in college for the first time), and be accepted and planning to enroll in an accredited culinary school, college or university.

Deadline:

August 18, 2010

Required Material:

Applicants are able to apply online through the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation. As part of their application, applicants will be asked to complete two essays, one a personal statement on their ultimate career goals in the restaurant or food service industry, and the other on the experience or person that most influenced that applicant’s decision to pursue a career in this field. Applicants should also provide one to three letters of recommendation.

Further details about the application process can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search on Scholarships.com. Once the search is completed, students eligible for this scholarship award will find it in their search results.

While you may not think hummus is as newsworthy as Google buying Groupon, Nina Garcia’s new baby or the death of Leslie Nielsen, a group of Princeton students would beg to differ.

The Princeton Committee on Palestine recently circulated a petition (and collected more than 200 signatures) regarding Sabra hummus, whose owner has been accused of contributing to human rights violations of Palestinians in the West Bank because the company supports the Israeli military. A referendum will appear on this week's Undergraduate Student Government election ballot and if the measure is approved, a formal request will be submitted to Dining Services to provide an alternative hummus option at all university-run outlets. “We think it’s important to allow students to have choice, and if they want to eat hummus, not have to buy a product that’s so morally problematic,” said Yoel Bitran, president of the Princeton Committee on Palestine.

This issue isn’t just isolated inside Princeton’s gates: Students at DePaul, Georgetown and other schools across the country are voicing their support for or against Sabra via – where else these days? – Facebook. Events like “Save the Hummus! -- Vote Against the Sabra Hummus Boycott” and its counterpart, "Boycott Sabra Hummus" have gained substantial followings, more evidence the matter is spreading across campus populations. But even if the measure doesn’t pass at Princeton, Bitran is just glad awareness is being raised. “In the beginning people didn’t really understand why this mattered,” he said. “People thought that it was just about hummus and kind of trivial. I think most people kind of changed their minds…. At this point the referendum itself is a detail.”

What’s your take, readers? Is a chickpea just a chickpea or does it represent much more?

With spring semester almost upon us (or already in session at some colleges), what are students looking to get out of the next four months on campus? Sure, Verizon iPhones, BCS Championship trophies and not having Facebook close down are excellent guesses but in reality, all students want is to feel good about themselves via regular self-esteem boosts. The real question then becomes if is this a good thing or a bad thing?

According to a new study by Ohio State University to be published in the Journal of Personality later this month, 130 University of Michigan students were asked to rate how much they wanted to partake in an enjoyable activity, like seeing friends, getting paid, having sex, eating a favorite food, drinking alcohol or receiving a self-esteem boost on a scale of 1 to 5 and how much they liked each of these things using the same scale. The findings overwhelmingly showed that these students cared more about increasing self-esteem.

Results did differ between male and female respondents – males ranked self-esteem above all else while females rated money and friendships as equally attractive as self-confidence – but the gap between liking self-esteem and wanting self-esteem was the slimmest out of all topics rated by both sexes, resembling an addictive mentality. Though not a full-fledged addiction for college students, the data show self-esteem comes dangerously close to being one. Levels of entitlement are also stronger with those who weigh wanting above liking - a trend the study’s authors Brad Bushman, Scott Moeller and Jennifer Crocker believe is not for the best.

Let’s put it to our own vote: Is it a confidence boost you want or does it take something else (our scholarship search, maybe?) to make you feel all warm and fuzzy?

The academic year is winding down at many colleges and so are many students’ meal plans and bank account balances. Instead of reaching for the ramen noodles (AGAIN), grab your computer instead. That’s what Greg Woloschyn did last year and it paid off: He created Food-bot and didn’t pay for food for five months.

The then-senior and computer science major at Carnegie Mellon grew tired of scouring his campus for free dining options so he created an email account that screened messages from every mailing list on campus for food-related terms. Once that method proved successful, Woloschyn spent his winter break writing a more advanced computer program called Food-bot which used the information to populate a food calendar online. His findings weren’t just doughnuts or pizza either: Woloschyn trained the program to rate the food mentioned in event listings (for example, steak earned a 10) and assigned “awkwardness” ratings for no-cost noshies at ethnic or religious-affiliated events.

One year later, Woloschyn’s plate is pretty full: He’s expanded Food-bot beyond Carnegie Mellon to serve empty-pocketed students at Berkeley, the University of Maryland at College Park, Duke, Case Western and MIT and has plans to develop mobile applications for Android phones and iPhones this summer when he’s not at work as a software engineer for Qualcomm. If you’ve tried Food-bot, has it kept your belly and wallet satisfied?