The Franklin Building and me - we don't get along. It seems that every time I go in there, Penn figuratively does to my wallet what Eliot Spitzer pays top dollar to do to anonymous women. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the cost of tuition (though at approximately $32k a year, I should be). I'm more concerned by the little things. Just take this past Thursday - needing two official transcripts post-haste, I blithely waltzed into the Registrar's office unaware of the $24 price tag that same-day service would cost me. To add insult to injury, my Bursar account - along with those of all graduating seniors - had been turned off the previous day. Twenty-four dollars! Of my own money! For two sheets of paper stuffed into individual envelopes. When all was said and done, the entire transaction took the woman working at the office no more than 45 seconds from start to finish - including printing time. I mean, for that kind of cost-to-service ratio, I should at the very least have gotten incredibly high.
My problem with situations like these isn't the actual money that I have to spend, it's the feeling that every time I turn around this University is nickel-and-diming me to death. Want your parents and family members to attend your graduation ceremony? Great. It's free - aside from the $56.16 it'll cost you to purchase a cap and gown that you'll wear all of two times for approximately two-and half hours total. Want to come watch some mediocre musical acts perform at Franklin Field this weekend? Awesome, now gimme $25 for a ticket in addition to the thousands upon thousands of dollars we already spent of your annual fees to book these bands. Speaking of Fling, want to come stumble around the Quad in a drunken stupor while reliving your freshman year? Cool, that'll cost you nothing (unless you want to bring a friend or family member, in which case, cough up 20 bucks, cash-only please). Of course, you're not allowed to bring any water or drinks in with you, so you might want to consider purchasing several of these conveniently priced $4 bottles of Poland Springs to avoid that epic hangover tomorrow morning.
Perhaps in the end all of these hidden costs are just one more extension of the so-called Wharton mentality that seems to leech into all things Penn - meta-pre-professionalism. It's not so much that Penn needs the extra scratch, or that they couldn't have asked for us to pay for these things up front - they're just preparing us for that fabled post-collegiate state that earnest college journalists like to call "real life." And us college kids better just get used to it. Or in the very least, find some Wharton friends to pay our way into the Quad.
