When I first heard about Boston University’s new restrictions on transfer credits from Boston area schools, I thought they were ridiculous I and about 4,000 other students.

How could credits from such institutions as Harvard and MIT but not from out-of-state community colleges contribute to ‘the dilution of the BU degree?’ How could BU, an upstanding institute of higher education, use ‘the Route 128 arc’ a crude, pothole-ridden strip of asphalt that doesn’t even remain equidistant from Boston to demarcate the holy boundary between Schools That Count and Schools That Don’t?

And how could Associate Provost John Ebersole, by blithely tacking the words ‘Summer Term is an important source of financial support to the University’ onto his memo, admit to what every disgruntled student would soon be accusing BU of: shameless money-grubbing?

The answer to all of these questions is quite simple. In fact, many of BU’s infamous aspects from the draconian guest policy to the inflated prices at Campus Convenience, from the opening of a hideous luxury hotel to the closing of the BU Academy’s Gay-Straight Alliance can be explained by one simple phrase: credo quia absurdum est. Or, for the classically challenged: I believe because it is absurd.

Sure, BU’s new transfer credit policy is ridiculous, unfair to students living in the Boston area and motivated by the almighty dollar. Also, Oprah Winfrey is fat, Jenna Bush is drunk and feces are brown.

Here at BU, we hold absurdities like these to be self-evident. Hell, if my only goal were to explain why the new transfer credit policy is unreasonable, I’d end up wasting the next 500 words on a thinly veiled personal ad. But I intend to soar above the Aonian mount and tell you exactly why the BU administration can get away with and even flaunt such ridiculousness.

The answer is once again simple: they know us too well. They know that the majority of students, when faced with an obstacle that requires some extra effort to overleap, will simply put their tails between their legs (hey, isn’t that where we like to put everything?) and run to Mommy and Daddy for a check.

Silber and his cronies aren’t stupid. In fact, I hold a grudging respect for their ability to take advantage of general idiocy and sloth within the student body. Armed with the knowledge that most of us won’t even go through the trouble to talk to a department chair and dean in order to circumvent the new transfer credit restrictions let alone venture outside the 128 arc to find decent schools they impose their preposterous policies with gleeful impunity.

‘But,’ you’ll now protest, ‘BU students can’t stand Silber, and we complain about him all the time!’

Well, you’re right on both accounts but you’re still a few cards short. Wearing ‘Fire Silber’ pins on our backpacks will certainly help to unseat the Lord Chancellor and change his policies just like taping miniature American flags to our car antennas aided Our Fearless Leader in his crusade to eradicate terrorism and find Osama.

We all know that BU has its share and BC’s share, and Northeastern’s share of ridiculous rules, but we get nowhere by complaining. Unfortunately, doing anything but whining could take hours, or even days, of our precious lives, and as the administration well knows, we can’t put down our beers, women (or men) and bongs long enough to be bothered.

Exhibit A: we can’t even fight corruption within the student government. Remember the shock, outrage and protest among students when former Tribune Lisa Franchini resigned in disgust last semester and revealed voting scandals that would make Jeb Bush blush? Remember the sweeping reforms the Student Union called for and the changes they made to curtail future abuses of power? Neither do I.

So how can we, the inept and lazy masses, effect any sort of change in an administration that doesn’t think we can handle being in our friends’ rooms after 1 a.m.? By fighting back with the one thing that holds more sway than any petition, protest or pin: money.

If we take the time to get our transfer credits approved by a dean, or to find a decent school outside the holy highway, perhaps BU will start to lose summer students and the revenue they bring in. Perhaps they’ll even rethink the new credit restrictions.

And it doesn’t have to stop there. If we all take the time to buy our food at the area’s myriad grocery stores, our books at half.com and our caffeine at Dunkin’ Donuts (contrary to popular complaints, there are two around here, one on the corner of St. Mary’s and Beacon and another by T. Anthony’s on Commonwealth Avenue), perhaps BU will realize that students shouldn’t have to pay extra for ‘convenience.’

Ideally, we students could use our money’s massive influence for good. Perhaps if BU didn’t have the additional revenue we so kindly supply, the administration would focus on improving the already fine education we receive here instead of throwing funds into salaries for invented ranks, land for luxury hotels and construction for elaborate sports complexes.

Unfortunately, none of this will happen unless the student body undergoes some massive reforms. Here at BU, we experience first-hand what French philosopher Alex de Tocqueville called ‘the tyranny of majority:’ the notion that those who make up the status quo will always prevail, even if they are not engaged in what is best for all.

Ergo, until the silent, lazy and submissive majority decides to prove our administrators wrong where they have proved them right so many times before, the sane among us will continue to dwell in BU’s bureaucratic hell. But, in consolation, the mind is its own place so we’ll make of it what we can.