I've gotten several emails/calls lately under the guise of reminding me about my five year reunion, when really they just want to hit me up for donations. I'm starting to get a little annoyed.
Let me start off by making it clear that I paid for almost my entire tuition. I received next to no financial aid, although my parents made well under $100,000 a year when I applied. But apparently, the only way to get anything more than a couple thousand bucks is to be at poverty level. There was no way my parents could contribute a dime to my education either, but the powers that be determined that didn't matter. I made my choice to go to NYU knowing what kind of debt I'd be graduating with, though. That isn't my complaint. What I do resent is the badgering to donate to the scholarship fund.
First of all, they call it "Give BACK to NYU." What exactly am I giving back? I wasn't gifted my education. I paid for it. And will be paying for it for many years to come. Does this mean that my cable or cell phone company is going to start hitting me up for donations because they too provide a service that I pay for?
Second of all, WHO exactly is this money going to?? Like I said, my parents couldn't contribute a dime to my education, but I didn't get anything from this scholarship fund, so how do they determine who gets a free or greatly reduced ride and who gets saddled with hundreds of thousands in debt?
Third, I particularly scoffed at their second argument for donating (Their 6th most popular reason, 'I hear you, but I'm broke.') Seriously? If I have $18 and change to spare, and I'm going to donate it instead of, you know, putting it towards that $180k in debt I have, I can think of many, many more worthy causes. Homeless children. Animal shelters. Cancer research. NYU's scholarship fund falls very low on my list of causes I'd give what little money I have to.
If more people had donated, maybe I WOULD have gotten scholarship money, you say? Well, they didn't. If this campaign for donations means future kids who are more like me, who don't fall below the poverty line but would still have to take out massive loans to go to college, can have their load lightened, great. Good for them. But for the time being, let the people from my class who DID get the help, either from NYU or their parents, build up that fund, and let me worry about getting this massive student loan debt off my plate.
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