Is Our School Robbing Us?

We are all well aware of the expression, "It's like taking candy from a baby." Well, in the case of college life, have you ever considered the thought, "It's like taking money from a student?"

No doubt there are students out there who don't realize the amount of money that is pouring into our school from their parents' pockets. However, if you are one of the few students who don't use your parents as your own personal ATM machine, while reading your student bill, your eyes could take notice of the "comprehensive fee" and its many divisions to which you might respond, "Why on Earth am I paying for all of this stuff?"

There are students out there who have never once hit the gym, never played an intramural sport, and have better things to do with their time than watch the football team lose again. I am nearly positive, in this case, that they have better ways to spend their money than to pay $150 a semester for something that simply doesn't interest them.

What about those students, like myself, who have their own doctor in Buffalo? I will never again set foot in Michael Hall after nearly being killed by a wrong prescription, or lack of a prescription. This actually happened the last two times that I went. We would be much better off buying a snowsuit to compete against Buffalo weather and defending our own health, than paying a $75 health fee to doctors who seem to not even care about what happens to us.

Then we come to that nice transportation fee that costs $96 or more a semester for students whether or not they have a car. Yes, I can see the point where most students do use the buses and the shuttles, but to pay for a parking spot when you don't have anything to park seems a little ridiculous. Besides, maybe more students would have their cars here if they were assured they'd actually be able to park on the campus where their classes were being held. Especially since they are paying for it, right?

And what about the food? How much money do we waste on food that we don't even like at this school? You start out as a freshman and spend over $1,000 on a meal plan whether you choose to use it or not. You don't get the money back that you didn't use up, and you can't transfer it over to the next year. It just gets taken away from you like it was never yours.

In my own experience, the first semester of my sophomore year, I naively thought that I was actually going to eat breakfast five times a week on campus or in the dining halls. So, I bought the five-meal plan. I probably ended up using it about 15 times at the most. As for the 300 dining dollars? At the end of the semester I still had over $250 left.

My friend (who was having the same problem I was) and I headed over to the Campus Tees store to cancel both of our meal plans, along with the dining dollars. However, we were not quite prepared for the battle that lay ahead of us.

"The only way you can carry over the dining dollars that you didn't use, is to add on $595 more," the women informed us.

At this point, I felt my face getting warmer as the anger inside of me grew. Why on Earth would I pay another $595 on top of the $258 that I didn't use? I clearly was not going to be spending $853 if I couldn't even spend the first $300.

The two of us put up a good fight against the system. However, we did not win the battle. We were left with two choices: spend the money, or lose it. No refund, no carry-over ... we'd been screwed.

Here's where I made the decision of not wasting more of my parents' money, even though I had already done so by not using the meal plan at all. The only thing I could think of was to go around to every vending machine on campus and load up on water bottles, muffins, and candy, all of which I have not been able to finish to this day.

It's like a huge conspiracy. There are all sorts of little tricks and cover-ups that the university uses to pick our pockets without us realizing it. And now, going back to the comprehensive fees that we all so unwillingly have to pay, Student Affairs is now planning on a nice increase for everyone. As if they don't take enough from us already.