Iowa State wants students’ money — and not just for tuition.

Students are being urged to donate to charity during Student United Way Week, which is going on now.

In past years, student donations to United Way have averaged less than 4 cents per student. That’s pretty shabby.

Students can donate cans during collections Wednesday and Thursday of this week between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. at designated areas around central campus.

Students living in the residence halls can also donate by skipping a meal.

Every student who doesn’t use his or her meal plan Wednesday night will be donating the meal money to United Way through the Department of Residence.

Eating Ramen noodles or grabbing a hamburger for one night instead of gorging on the all-you-can-eat meal deal doesn’t seem like too large of a sacrifice, considering United Way has helped students in recent years.

They helped victims of fires in both Theta Chi fraternity and Larch Hall’s Wolf House.

However, it seems odd that the Department of Residence can afford to donate money from skipped meals to United Way but can’t pay students back their money for meals they don’t use.

While the department doesn’t charge students with meal plans for roughly two meals a week, figuring they will miss about that many meals on average, many students probably miss more meals than they get credit for.

Some students eat hardly any of the meals they pay for — the only reason they pay for meals from Dining Services is because the Department of Residence makes every student living in the residence halls buy a meal plan.

One of the reasons students don’t get credit for additional meals they skip may be because Dining Services prepares food for them anyway.

The extra food has to be donated or thrown away, so there isn’t any extra money.

Dining Services won’t know how many students are going to skip the meal Wednesday night either, so they will have to prepare plenty of food.

Is the Department of Residence losing money that day?

Most students probably wouldn’t donate the money they would get back from missed meals, so maybe the department’s plan is wise.

Perhaps the best plan of action would be to skip the meal for United Way but keep questioning the Department of Residence halls about their meal plan policies.