BY COLLEGIAN STAFF

The hours and food options at The Marketplace at Atherton Union and Campus Club­—better known as C-Club—are not to the advantage of students and other dining area patrons.
The on-campus dining options need to expand their hours, and healthier options need to be offered at more reasonable prices.
The greatest focus should be placed on Atherton and C-Club because students use them most frequently for full meals.
The reason for this is not necessarily because they are students’ favorite spots. They frequently are the only options for a legitimate meal many times during the day.
C-Club is open until 9:30 p.m. each night. The only other food options on campus open later are Starbucks and the Convenience Store at Apartment Village.
Atherton is open no later than 7:30 p.m. any day.
Very few students who are busy or on-the-go are actually going to grab a complete lunch or dinner at Starbucks, the Convenience Store or even Atherton.
Starbucks and the Convenience Store offer limited options for snacks or small meals, but C-Club offers more ready-to-go lunch and dinner options students can purchase and eat without much  hassle.
Unfortunately, those options aren’t available at one of the most important times on a college campus: late night.
The Convenience Store closes at 10 p.m. most nights and Starbucks at midnight.
This is only beneficial to those who are in need of a late night snack and live near either location.
Plus—as a point of comparison—universities like Indiana and Villanova offer multiple food options as late as 1 a.m.
Obviously, those universities are larger and have more potential employees in the form of students,   but Butler President James Danko has stated Butler looks at the Villanovas of the college sphere as points of comparison for the university.
The early closing hours of Atherton are an additional disadvantage to students who have night classes or need to eat late for another reason.
Forcing these students at if they want a full meal—to eat C-Club is made problematic by its food choices and pricing.
Aspects of C-Club were improved aesthetically over the summer, and new food options were brought in. However, unreasonably high prices have rendered these points moot.
Salads cost nearly $6. There are no longer free refills from the fountain drink dispenser.
Options like chips cost less than $2, while healthier sides like fruit cups cost nearly $4. Those looking for healthy food options are going to avoid C-Club during the day because of prices.
But if it is a student’s only option, he or she will have to bite the bullet. That should not have to happen.
The addition of the milkshake machine and a few other upgrades  at C-Club are beneficial. But new policies and prices have made this a less appealing dining option.
It feels as though Butler is looking to benefit its bank account instead of student interests or schedules.
Altering hours at C-Club and Atherton would be beneficial to many students whose schedules run late into the night because of class, athletics and extracurriculars.
This should be done in a way that does not harm Aramark employees.
The logistics of staffing dining areas at Butler may be different than it is at bigger universities, but if Butler is striving to become a larger institution, it needs to adjust.
Finding a way to make healthy options—specifically at C-Club—more affordable would be helpful to students.
This certainly cannot be fixed overnight, but Butler needs to start somewhere, and it should do so soon.