Not fit to fucking print…
I wish I knew why I am so obsessed with college living this week. But there was more NYU news in the Post this morning. It seems they’re charging students 10 cents a page to print their “homework” at campus computer labs. As one philosophy major puts it: “We’re paying a shitload of money to go here and they’re screwing us. It sucks.” Yes, well, I’m sure Kant couldn’t have said it better. But the boy has a point. In fact, if I were his tuition paying parents, i’d probably be driving down here like a bat out of hell right now. What is equally intriguing, however, is the university’s spin on the charges. “These paper cuts (hah!hah!) shouldn’t really sting that bad…It should reduce the 5-6 million sheets of paper that are wasted each year.” So, you see, it’s a green move, a little gesture on the part of NYU to help the environment. Right. Anyway, I guess I’m obsessed because my daughter is in the midst of applying to college at this very moment and we’re shaking in our proverbial boots. Of course, I have also just discovered that private school heads in the city are paid somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000 to $500,000 a year PLUS expenses. Which is some fucking nice vicinity to be in. It certainly explains why the head of my children’s private school was willing to dress up as everything from a drum beating Eskimo to a grass-skirted Hawaiian hula dancer (the head was a man) at the annual scholarship auction. The bottom line is obvious. When you have it in this town, you spend it. Without even thinking about it. It’s when you don’t have it, or when you’ve spent it, that you wonder how in hell “they” get away with it.
P.S. Please read Ken and Bruce’s comments on yesterday’s post. They’re both more articulate and thoughtful than I was re the influence of affluence and “higher” education.
