A Stanford undergrad’s essay in The New York Times has really stirred things up. Sebastian Connolly, who studies at Stanford, says some students pretend to follow Jainism just to get out of the university’s pricey meal plan of $7,944 for the 2025–26 school year.
In Indian rupees, this adds up to Rs 7 lakh.
Stanford Student Claims Some Pretend to Be Jain to Avoid Costly Meal Plan
In his piece, Connolly argues this isn’t just about food. He calls it part of a bigger trend on campus, where students swap tips on how to dodge university rules anyway they can. The Indian Express picked up the story too.
Stanford, for its part, hasn’t said anything either way.
What are the accusations mentioned in the Stanford essay?
In his essay, he says he knows students who fake being Jain to get around Stanford’s dining requirements. “Let’s stop pretending this doesn’t happen,” he writes.
He also points out that these students use their meal credits at places like Whole Foods off-campus because, honestly, they think the food there is just better than what the dining halls offer.
Connolly bases all this on what he’s seen and heard from friends and classmates. He admits there’s no official data to back it up, just personal experience.
What’s Stanford’s meal policy?
As per the University site, most undergraduates at Stanford, living in campus are compelled to participate in a university meal plan. The university permits religious or medical exemptions though it does not publish the number of recipients of such exemptions, how the exemptions are handled or through whether or not misuse is investigated formally.
Sebastian Connolly also observed that he had heard of students who still practised the same practice as they professed to be Jain.
Jainism is a belief that has rigid dietary rules not to harm the living creatures, which may avoid meat, eggs, or even certain root vegetables, including onions, garlic, and potatoes.
Because of these eating restrictions, US universities, such as Stanford, are allowed to accommodate religion in case campus dining fails to meet those needs.
In this situation, according to The Times of India (TOI) students can be given an option to skip standard meal plans and use their dining allowance elsewhere.
What are the responses to the accusation?
The passage of the Connolly essay has spread like wildfire on social media, and it has been discussed outside the Stanford campus.
One user commented, Wait a minute, 7k on, what, 7 months of food? I am able to feed a family of 4 in under one year Moneycontrol reported.
Students at Stanford are pretending to be Jains so they can spend their meal plan money at Whole Foods instead of the school cafeteria: pic.twitter.com/C8kDQmJiO3
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) February 2, 2026
“That price is absurd. Another individual said that when I joined college the meal plan was so inexpensive (and the food unlimited) that I would think of returning to college with only one course per semester to be able to have it when the mood struck.
There are even those who have justified the act as concerns of legitimacy of religion.
“That’s not true or fair. Stanford Indian students do so because of legitimate reasons – most of them do not wish to eat food which might have been in contact with beef which is a religious anathema to us. The reason why Whole Foods is safer is because of this. The tag Jain may also denote eating habits in which onion and garlic are shunned in most instances among Indians, as one user commented.
Did students have perks to pose with disabilities?
The Hindustan Times reported another essay by one of the students of Stanford University, Elsa Johnson, who wrote that a section of students at the university registered as persons with a disability to get perks.
This practice was coined by one of the students of International Relations and East Asian Studies at Stanford, Johnson who calls this game the system gaming. In her view, students under the disabled category ended up receiving the best housing on campus, and other benefits, including additional time to take the tests, additional absences of classes, and others.
The university has however not spoken out the allegations of these essays.
