Campus Woudestein. Home to Rotterdams Erasmus University, which I happen to attend.

At an university with around 20,000 students you would expect an opportunity to eat cheaply. Then you better look somewhere else. Woudestein is expensive.

Here are the contributors:

1. Starbucks

Yes, there is a Starbucks on campus. Serving overpriced "coffee" to anyone who is willing to pay. Appearantly many people are in need to drink pricey Froppaccino or whatever they call their strange brews. I am not judging anybody but Starbucks coffee is not real coffee. It is a lifestyle product.

Starbucks is just an example as it is located in the new Food Court. A place where it is hard to get a meal for under 5 Euros.

2. Spar

It is really nice that there is a supermarket on campus. But did it had to be the most expensive one in the country?

They should have opened an Aldi if you ask me. But that probably would not fit into the universities plans of being internationally attractive.

One thing I really hate about this Spar? The "jokes" they came up with to make the design more appealing to young people. Look at this:

Read: This croissant is not a smiley, lol.
Oh, really? How humorous!

3. The new cafeteria in the Tinbergen building
This place just sucks.It looks like from a 70's Sci-Fi movie. Or like any generic corporation lunch facility. All this clean white is hurting my eyes.

Shouldn't a cafteria serve affordable food to a great amount of people? In this case the criteria for amount is fulfilled, the criteria for price is not. Sos is it still a real cafeteria? Certainly. But not a good one.

4. Erasmus Paviljoen

Yeah, it looks pretty stylish but who can afford to eat there? Maybe a wealthy professor.
As far as I know you are also supposed to buy something if you want to sit there. Not that everybody obeys, but seriously?

We pay study fees already. Thus we should be allowed to use all campus facilities for free. That should be self-evident.

So much rage
This is a lot of rage but does anybody even care? Hard to tell, but I do. Because I am on campus at least 5 days per week.

If you don't bring any food with you and have class all day, there is not much choice other than eating here. There is simply no other option in close proximity. But do that every day and it can put a serious strain on your budget. There are things like rent, transport and intoxication as well.

There is one ray of light, though:

The Erasmus Sports Cafe

Tucked away in a remote corner of the campus, this little cafeteria is part of the universities gym. I have never entered the gym but a lot of coffee from the cafe has entered my body.

It has just the right amount of shabbieness combined with reasonable prices. At least for Dutch standards. Here you can feel like a student and not like a fancy douchebag.

A bleak future?
Another slick glass cube on campus is being built. The curriculum is getting more and more internationally oriented. Dutch student support was deprived of the free amount of money it used to contain (now it is a complete loan).

It almost looks like something happening in London, Paris or Berlin: Attraction of international capital. Establishment of big brands. The old inhabitants (student population) getting pushed out.

Woudestein resembles a downtown bussiness district already. It will get increasingly less affordable for students with few to none financial support from their families to study here.

Some people might find it far fetched. But you could call it Gentrification.
And I am part of the problem.