President Brown’s Followup Email About 3.4% Tuition Increase LEAKED And You Won’t BELIEVE What It Says
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, ONE SILBER WAY—On March 9, President Robert A. Brown emailed the Boston University community about next year’s 3.4% increase in tuition, room, and board. After being belittled by 3.4% more protests and complaint memes than usual, President Brown has worked tirelessly to perfect another email to the student body breaking down the increase. Before President Brown had a chance to send the email, The Bunion reporters received a leaked copy of the email, which we, of course, are immediately publishing to the BU community. See the email below:
Dear Boston University Students, Parents, and Wheelock Underlings,
Last week, I wrote to inform you of the increases in tuition and room and board for Academic Year 2018-2019. Boston University tuition will increase 3.6%, and our standard room and board rate will increase 2.9%, making a total cost increase for tuition, fees, and room and board of 3.4%. As I told you when I wrote initially, this is tied for the smallest rate of increase in 25 years. I was expecting my generosity to be met with praise and gratitude, but I was very disappointed by the response. From what my social media experts have informed me, you are all outraged at a very reasonable increase in your tuition. These concerns are unfounded. You don’t seem to understand that a Boston University education is priceless. But obviously we cannot make attendance free, so we endeavor to get the cost of attendance as close to priceless as possible. This reflects our commitment to a high quality educational experience, as well as our commitment to receiving as much of your money as possible.
In order to appease those who fear that the increases in tuition are being used frivolously, I have magnanimously elected to release a brief excerpt of our latest budget reports. When you see where your money is going, you will no longer be able to protest the increases and make Facebook posts about the evils of capitalism and pictures featuring my face edited onto what my advisors tell me are called Memes. Here are just a few of the worthwhile services that your tuition dollars pay for:
1. Tutoring: although Boston University is an elite school with the highest quality education of any university (save, perhaps, Harvard and Trump Universities), many of our students do not enter college with the academic and social backgrounds needed to prosper here at Boston University. CFA freshman often need extra help in math, many CGS freshmen must learn how to read, and almost 70% of ENG males need tutoring in how to talk to females. Your tuition dollars help to keep our many tutoring centers thriving so that each and every Boston University student can succeed. Except for COM students. We have not yet figured out how to help them. Except for giving them their own Career Center and Writing Center.
2. Lobster night: as you have undoubtedly been told if you have ever been on an official tour* of the university, once a year, students are served lobster in the dining hall. They are not particularly high-quality lobsters, nor are they appreciated by the vast majority of students, but the ambiance and sophistication implied by the sentence “There are lobsters in the dining hall today” should raise BU at least two spots in US News and World Report. This is an indispensable investment.
*We appreciate our tour guides, so much so that we are mentioning them in this letter. Please accept this gratitude and stop asking to be paid for your hard work. We simply do not have the funds.
3. Increased fire alarm testing: this year we managed to test dormitory fire alarms for an unprecedented total of 74 hours. This is a 16% increase from Academic Year 2016-2017, and we hope to increase this number in the future. Part of your tuition goes towards maintaining a 24/7 fire alarm testing staff.
4. Visiting chefs: after several Canada Goose-clad students complained that the dining halls were not sufficiently boujee, we added visiting chefs to Boston University dining halls. They serve exotic dishes, from interestingly shaped cookies to chicken that is definitely not the usual chicken with a different name. Visiting chefs can serve you small pieces of baguette, or small pieces of cheese, whereas normally in the dining halls you can only receive large pieces of baguette or large pieces of cheese. Isn’t that worth 3.4%?
I hope this brief insight into our budgetary decisions has led you to realize that these and other services are funded by you, and that each and every one of them is vital to the Boston University experience. We spend your money wisely. If you have any other questions, I encourage you not to reach out, because our budget specialists are currently extremely busy researching the most luxurious mustache mousses available.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Brown