Graduating college comes with a lot of extra expenses, and your cap and gown is just the start. Seniors shell out hundreds – sometimes thousands – of dollars to ensure their transition out of college goes smoothly. Down payments for homes, cars, travel, moving costs, utility deposits – the list goes on and on. The burden of that extra cost already makes this time of the year uniquely stressful for low-income students like me.
Now, imagine being one of those low-income students and receiving this email from GW Seniors:
“As your senior year at GW comes to a close, we want to take the opportunity to remind you about the tradition of the GW Senior Class Gift. Unlike other schools, as a class, we don’t pool together to buy a specific item or create a specific fund in honor of the Class of 2023. Instead, we each make our own gift of any size to the student organization, academic department, athletic team or cause at GW that matters to you.”
I think Captain America best sums up my response here. “No, I don’t think I will.”
For all of us, the cost of GW is already immense. Many pay thousands upon thousands of dollars each semester just to attend. Some have family who can foot the bill, but many don’t. And for those students, there’s one real solution – working. My personal financial burden these last four years for mandatory expenses alone has been $56,300, which has meant taking on a lot of work – at times more than 50 hours a week – just to finish my education. Given all of my hard work and effort, it frankly feels like an insult to be approached before I’ve even graduated and asked for yet more money.
It would be one thing if they just wanted a donation with nothing at stake, but that’s not the case. If you don’t donate, you will be gated out of various experiences during graduation season. The first event, advertised in the aforementioned email, was a food truck lunch in Potomac square – and the only way to get food was to donate. Could you go and sit there while everyone around you is eating? Sure. But you won’t get the full experience. Translation – if you’re poor, you can’t celebrate. Not like your peers, at least.
The senior class gift is yet another offense in a long history of class discrimination at GW. It’s no secret that our financial aid system is bunk at best – students who have issues with their aid package often have to endure lengthy hold times and endless referral loops to solve simple issues.
GW’s shortcomings don’t end there. My class paid thousands of dollars a year for a glorified prepaid food visa with limited options, and newer classes have been forced into a meal swipe plan that gets them access to “buffets” with limited, repetitive offerings. Student housing is another well-known offender, where students pay roughly $2,500 per month per person in every mold-ridden, poorly maintained room.
Even the education we spend tens of thousands of dollars on each semester presents a questionable value. It’s no secret that this school isn’t cheap. It’s true that some people love it here, but a good experience doesn’t mean good value, and when you have to work 50 hours a week while attending class full time, the rose-tinted glasses start to fade. Despite being one of the most expensive schools in the nation, we don’t crack the top 10 academically, or even the top 50. Last year, GW ranked 62nd on the U.S. News and World Report rankings – a dubious value for the price – all while some officials rake in more than $1 million per year.
Donating to student organizations or academic programs is a better use of a senior’s money than an arbitrary statue or grant fund made in a class’s honor. But students still should not be expected to foot this cost themselves, especially not as a condition of enjoying their graduation season. If GW wants to reward beloved organizations and programs with extra funding, they could allocate $50 for each of the about 3,000 graduating seniors, who could then distribute that money to the organizations we see fit. The cost would only be about $150,000. For that measly price tag, officials could lift the burden off poor students while funding a host of worthwhile causes on campus.
With such a rocky track record, GW surely has a lot of work to do if it wants to lower its financial burden on low-income students. Not hitting them with the door on the way out would be a great place to start.
Kyle Anderson, a senior majoring in political science, is an opinions writer.
