Op-Ed
Nickeled and Duped
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Guest Room | Hanna Roos ’10
$45. A month-long membership to an Ithaca yoga studio? Several months’ worth of those daily donations to a starving child in Uganda? A tank of gas for the ride home? Wrong. $45 is how much I’ve spent on espresso drinks at Libe Café in the past 7 days. Addict? Perhaps. But, like most college students, caffeine is a drug I won’t soon be giving up, even if it breaks the bank. And what about $20? A month’s worth of library printing, some of it still floating in a NetPrint black hole somewhere. Cornell is well aware of its typical student’s everyday needs, which is probably why they overcharge for them.
I’ve tried to conserve, I really have. I gave up the $145 gym membership this year in favor of other luxuries like clothing and shelter. Many of my friends continue to pay to battle the crowds in search of a free – er, available – treadmill, but I made the right decision! So what if I’ve gotten fewer dates? I’m saving money! I also decided to leave my car at home this year to avoid the enormous annual permit fee, not to mention the cost of parking tickets that arise from the lack of available parking. “It’s financially responsible,” they told me – but what about that $495 TCAT bus pass? I might even excuse this expense, if I hadn’t lost track of the number of times the bus has driven right by my stop because it was too full to pick me up, causing me to be late for class. I started making coffee at home, too, so I wouldn’t have to use CornellCard (which, contrary to popular belief, can end up costing more than just using cash), downing a cup or two before I started off to the bus [sometimes] stop. But for those of us who have long abandoned hope of getting the recommended nine hours of sleep, one, two, sometimes three cups of coffee doesn’t cut it, and a trip to the café line is inevitable. Is Cornell really punishing me for craving a mid-day dose of caffeine by charging Starbucks prices for second-rate coffee? [Apologies to the employees of Libe Café – it’s not your fault that Seattle’s Best is, well, not good enough] Other schools (sit down if you’re not already, as this may be overwhelming) include printing and gym memberships – yes, the climbing wall and the fitness classes, too – in the cost of tuition, give student discounts on things like cab fare and local restaurants, and offer free public transportation to students without cars.
I’m not saying the financial team at Cornell makes absolutely no effort. They offer the CityBucks program, which does give discounts from time to time. Also, last year they gave free bus passes to freshmen who didn’t bring cars, though they decided this year that this was not such a good idea [perhaps because they thought this Ithaca winter wouldn’t be quite so bitter, or because they thought the incoming freshmen were avid speed-walkers]. And hey, if you buy a meal plan with more weekly meals, the price of each individual meal goes down! Now, how many of us actually use every single meal? If you calculate the cost of each meal you actually used, I’ll bet that meal plan doesn’t seem so economical after all.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with paying for public transportation, or a gym membership, or coffee, or printing. It’s just … I thought I already did. I remember clicking that “Pay [gargantuan] bill now” button on NetPay at the beginning of every semester, but a wave of financial amnesia hits me every time I stand in line for each overpriced burst of caffeine. A free small coffee after every tenth cup? $3.00 for every $30, if you usually buy only smalls? Is that some sort of sick joke?
And I understand that paper and ink costs money and someone has to pay for printing. It seems a little strange, however, that this paper and ink only costs money for students, while (paid) professors print for free. Now I haven’t calculated this exactly but, I’m pretty sure if you didn’t buy that Latin American studies course packet, which is probably just copies of excerpts from other texts, or essentially an inflated version of NetPrint, you could use the money to feed a Nicaraguan instead of just reading about him. Not that you should, mind you … you just might not want to tell the Nicaraguan. So as you sip your mediocre Libe latte and flip through your non-returnable course packet, consider this: reading this paper is probably the only truly free thing you’ll do today. And guess what? The Sun isn’t even funded by Cornell.
Hanna Roos is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at hsr22@cornell.edu. Please send Guest Room submissions to opinion@cornellsun.com
Oy. You're not being nickled
Oy. You're not being nickled and dime by having to pay for all these things. If Cornell shifted to "free" printing, gym memberships and coffee, they would just raise tuition by whatever amount it will take to cover these expenses.
Also, I like how you solution to overpriced coffee is for the university to give you "free" coffee. Not everyone drinks coffee, prints on campus, or goes to the gym, and forcing all students to subsidize these things is a poor use of tuition money. Professors don't get "free" printing either. Their salary takes into account all of the administrative costs that the department spends.
Agreed
I transferred in this year to Cornell, and the additional financial burdens were shocking. I know these may seem like trivial things, but I was used to free LAUNDRY, free BUS SERVICE, free CABLE, yes even free PRINTING. Did I mention it was all free? All these little charges add up. Oh yeah, NO MEAL PLAN! It was all debit-based, sort of like Big Red Bucks, but much more heavily subsidized (think $0.70 for a slice of pizza). Considering I went to a state school where my total cost of attendance for the year amounted to less than a semester here, I can't help but wonder where our money goes?
A cup of coffee costs $1.25,
A cup of coffee costs $1.25, and a shot of espresso isn't that expensive either. You could also get cheaper tea, or pop.
There is no reason that you need to buy expensive drinks, and no reason that everyone else should have to pay for them. The fact that you wasted $45 on *luxuries* is no one's fault but your own. If you can't afford that then you need to learn to control your spending - maybe Cornell is even doing you a favor by forcing you to look at what is essential and what is not.
Shoot the *Messenger*
I think this is a clear case of a good topic broached by a poor representative.
Cornell does have issues with nickle-and-dime'ing students, but it is admittedly hard to take such issues seriously when presented by someone who indulges in $45 dollar a week coffee expenses. As many have mentioned, easy solution: drink cheaper coffee and not as much. Buy the silver "sustainability" mug at any campus location, you can refill it infinite times for $1.19 and it holds about 14 ounces.
Indeed, paper and ink cost money to provide, but it is one more example of money Cornell piles on. The circular argument tends to go "1) These things cost money, so we have to pay for them. If we subsidized them tuition would go up. 2) Other schools have cheaper tuition why can't Cornell give us these things? Cornell is a better school with more research funding and investments."
That argument falls to pieces when you look at the majority of our peer institutions. Gym passes, printing, other things are often free at several of the Ivies, along with most research-driven state schools and private colleges. The endowment is an issue, but again, many state schools including the SUNYs are pretty much "all-inclusive" and drive aware winning research too.
Finally, I understand the part about "not everyone uses 'x' service, so not everyone should pay." However, every freshman DOES use campus laundry, so perhaps the freshman class could split that. A large portion of students use TCAT because of Ithaca/Cornell's abysmal parking situation, and more have used it in the past when it's free. Again, many private and public schools provide free transit to cut back on parking costs. The only aspect of your argument I could actually see would be the gym pass, as a minority of students buy them, and fewer regularly use.
But in the end, for a world class University that charges a fortune in tuition and just recently capitulated on a decent financial aid package, I'd think they could throw us some free laundry and bus passes now and then.
But for the love of Pete, buy cheaper coffee and drink less if you find it so darn troublesome. And using cash over CornellCard helps, because if you don't have cash..........DON'T SPEND THE MONEY!
I think this is a case of shoot the messenger, discuss the topic.