When I was young, I had a fantastic obsession with the mail. I would get off the big, dirty yellow school bus – which until the age of 7, I aspired to drive one day — and run to the bright wooden box at the edge of my driveway. I would flip through the usually thick pile only to find nothing addressed to me in particular, although I usually claimed the catalogs as my own. After all, I was what they called an “or current resident.”
Now I’m nearly 21 and have to admit I’m still somewhat addicted. In this digital age, who doesn’t love getting a letter — a real on-paper, sealed-in-an-envelope letter? I tend to not get a lot of mail at my dorm, so I must take advantage and feed my addiction when I’m home on breaks.
Nowadays, we get a lot of communication from Boston University at home. Usually, it’s a lot of junk. “Give us money!” they’ll tell my family. Don’t we already do that, BU? On top of that, we’re constantly inundated with grade reports, financial statements and letters from the dean about how fast my school is moving up in the rankings. But it’s not always so trivial.
Once a year, always over Spring Break, we get the pleasure of a letter from President Brown himself. He tells us how well the university is doing and how there are big plans in the works for its future. We hear about how the endowment is growing, and how the university is “focused on controlling expenses.”
Oh, and by the way, tuition is going up. Really, BU? Don’t we pay enough already? I continue reading. President Brown says the total cost should be approximately $47,958. There must be something wrong with that figure.
I grab my calculator and begin to add. So there’s $36,540 for the base tuition, and then my room in the Village is another $12,360. Then we’ve got the Undergraduate Student Fee at $510, that pesky ResNet fee of $260 and of course my beloved sports pass that gets me into all of the hockey games. I hit the equal sign, and . . . wait. $49,760? How can this be? With books, this is going to jump to well over $50,000 — and that’s without food.
I, like most of you, have already pretty much sold my soul to the Boston University gods — and there’s no turning back. Whether tuition costs $45,000 or $55,000, we’ve committed ourselves and we’re staying. And we need to be sure to milk our quarter-million-dollar educations for everything they are worth.
After all, there are plenty of things that BU does right. First and foremost, my education looks expensive. BU took care of that when it hired Toth Brand Imaging to ensure I am regarded as “modern, urban, confident, diverse and dynamic.” Embrace the cool, people. The administration took some criticism from members of the community, calling our “brand identity” a waste of the university’s resources. But it’s only a waste if we resist it. The bottom line is that we are posturing ourselves as a single, unified force, and streamlining the way hundreds of departments present themselves publicly will only positively affect this endeavor. Besides, if I’m paying $50,000 to go here, our logo better look like a million bucks.
Apart from looking expensive, my education finds its home in the wonderfully affluent city of Boston. All of our classes are conveniently located along one main drag — Commonwealth Avenue, which has its own perks. Trying to avoid that horrifically regrettable one-night stand? Don’t want to run into that roommate from freshman year whom you no longer speak to? Here at BU, you can’t really avoid awkward interactions. You are bound to cross paths with the people you least want to encounter on the one and only path you can take to get to class. At BU, our dirty laundry is hanging out to dry for all to see, and it’s oh-so-fun to watch. Paying high tuition is like springing for good cable so you can get TNT. BU knows drama.
On campus, we have a pretty good deal as far as facilities go. You hear people complain about how tiny their mice-and-roach-infested dorm rooms are. Give me a break, underclassmen. Pay your dues. Rarely will you find a school that puts you up in anything more than a dump freshman year, and it’s never until senior year when you really see the good stuff. Besides, if you didn’t live in Warren Towers, you would never get the experience of being yelled at for not holding your ID up long enough for the guards to see your photo or of realizing you’ve just completely changed clothes in front of a group of onlookers in the opposite tower. It’s all part of a housing experience that only our beloved BU can offer. Our housing choices are already relatively plentiful, and with the completion of the new Student Village building, a lot of sophomores will be happy campers.
Higher tuition affords us better perks than other colleges. We may be tired of the limited selection in the Towers dining hall and of the same sandwiches in the GSU day after day, but our food options are worlds better than other colleges’. There’s FitRec, and even if you don’t use it, you really can’t make an argument against its existence. Our fashionista women and macho men make frequent use of this pricey facility, and it’s all for free.
The next time you find yourself complaining about how high your bill is, just stop and think about all of the wonderful BU-exclusive features our tuition dollars pay for. We get a lot for our money, whether we ask for it or not. It’s that one of a kind BU experience we pay a premium for. Embrace it, and have the time of your life. Don’t, and wave goodbye, because you’ve just wasted a quarter-million dollars.
Brandon Epstein, a junior in the School of Management, is a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. He can be reached at [email protected].