Gothamist: Student's Statement About NYU Costing Money

hijiki

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 10:22:21 -0500

sorry reality, you're still not grasping the point here. the payment is not for 'schoolwork'. there is indeed a real money return on a scholarship investment. my employer could easily pay me a competitive rate that is half what i currently make. she doesn't do that because she understands that if she wants to keep the reputation that her company provides reliable, high quality work, she needs to persuade high quality employees to remain in her service. same as a university paying scholarships. they pay students for their talents because it helps their reputation which in turn makes their institution more attractive to rich parents and therefore boosts their profits. a return on the investment. additionally, specific field scholarships (like my drawing example or perhaps a fruit fly genetics is more acceptable to you) do help the university in its research and discovery fields and very obviously provide a return on the investment. just because a job is not performed on an hourly rate does not mean that the payment is not earned all the same. the argument is not whether it's 'a job', you claimed that it was not earned money, but a gift or reward. it would be a gift if the donor expected and recieved nothing in return. i've just given you 2 examples (actually more above that) of how donors see merit-based scholarship as an investment and expect a return. you should be paying me for this.

REALITY CHECK

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 17:54:27 -0500

A paycheck isn't a gift for time spent assisting your employer. It's an actual, measurable exchange of service. You perform a valued skill, and you get paid for that skill. A scholarship is a gift because it's not an equal exchange. You get a lot of real money (in real dollars from our common economy) as payment for schoolwork (which has nearly no monetary value to our economy). It's a gift because despite your worthiness, the school still received plain-old dollars from someone. You're saying that sometimes scholarships are awarded as an investment. At first it may seem like a virtual loan of service, but it's never paid back. So it's a gift. It's a gift because your pay isn't cut for when you start to work for them. The gift is an investment on their part to get the top people, and it happens to be mutually beneficial. But just because it's mutually beneficial, doesn't mean the student literally worked for all that scholarship money if it's never paid back. So it's a mutually beneficial *gift.* Gift and a literal payment, while sometimes appearing similar, can be different.

hijiki

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:34:27 -0500

not that it really matters, but you're not entirely true, REALITYCHECK. a merit-based scholarship is not merely a reward for past work, it is a payment for further development of that person's education. it is an investment with the assumption that the recipient will enrich their interests. a scholarship is usually funded by a private party who is paying talented people to develop expertise which furthers the donors interests in society. most scholarships are for specific areas of study. if the donor loves pencil drawings, they will make a scholarship for students to push the pencil-drawing envelope. with many, especially non-profit groups, the donor will follow up with requests to contribute to the institution in the future. a school may offer scholarships to lure talented students to their schools in order to keep a good reputation in that particular field. they are paying students to enhance their reputation. that is not merely a 'gift'. it is very much like employment. isn't a paycheck merely a gift for time spent assisting your employer?

REALITY CHECK

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 12:03:51 -0500

Reread my comment. I made no cracks about NYU students. I didn't say NYU students weren't hard-working. My comment was about being self-sufficient. And don't kid yourself, many of you aren't. If money came from another source *before* you earned it, you got help, plain and simple. A scholarship, while "earned" through schoolwork, is not the same as actually earning that money, dollar-for-dollar. A scholarship is earned because a donator was simply selective about who got the money, not because the donator received $120,000 worth of schoolwork from a student. A scholarship is still a gift. It's like your parents buying you a new bike because you got an A in Math. 8-year-old Timmy didn't score at the Schwinn shop by showing the guy a copy of his report card. Without getting too deep into the economics of it, schoolwork holds very little monetary value. (Try paying your rent to your landlord with a copy of your report on global warming.) Money is a unit of labor and demand. Tuition is paid for by those units, not the kindness of NYU's hearts or the worthiness of a student. A student loan of a large magnitude for an 18-year-old kid is almost always co-signed with someone who has a solid credit history. And that credit history is earned over several years by the parents. You wouldn't have had that loan without them. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with receiving help. But don't sit here trying to convince me that you didn't have help, because you have no idea. I did not go to college after high school, because my parents refused to fund it. So I hunted around and learned the names of the books that were being used at universities and learned on my own. After going through hell and back, and many years of working through the ranks and in my field, I saved enough to pay for my own studies. Without getting to the details of my personal life, I haven't seen my family since last decade. And now, in addition to my regular work, I interview college kids who assist me. So don't you tell me about being self-made. You're damn right I have a chip on my shoulder. NYU students are fine, and there's nothing wrong with getting help (I repeat, there's nothing wrong with getting help or a scholarship), but I do have a problem with students who claim to be self-made when they really aren't. It makes me want to gag myself with a spoon.

NYU grad

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 09:57:14 -0500

It's stupid to stereotype people for where they go to school or who paid for it. There are tons of people in their late teens and early twenties who are annoying who don't go to NYU. I congratulate Margaret for doing it on her own, but really the only folks who get money are those who would otherwise go to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc., or those whose have almost no money at all, i.e., could never afford NYU in a million years. I got plenty of help from my family, and you know what? I don't think there's anything shameful about it, or that I am or ever was a spoiled brat.

Margaret

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 08:45:35 -0500

I am sure it is not cool to actually stand up for NYU, but I am one of those urban legend students that made it through 4 years on scholarships and financial aid. Awards, loans, work study...they actually do make it possible for even low income students to attend. If you think creatively and apply for EVERY grant and type of funding it can be done. From housing to financial aid, I was helped by a lot of great people at NYU. I really think it's all about how you navigate the system. In a huge university it can be tricky, but totally do-able. As for: "Even if you got a big student loan, the credit rating of your well-off mom and dad's co-signature helped secure it. If you got a grant or scholarship, that means someone *else* paid, not you." Well, my student loans are being paid off with my hard earned money and the grants and scholarships I got were awarded to me because I worked my ass off. If you think that isn't self-made, you must have a HUGE chip on your shoulder.

Samantha T

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:09:53 -0500

Kay - I'm with you. NYU students are so vilified and for no good reason. I went to graduate school there and taught some undergrad sections - I thought the student body was very diverse and self-motivated. As for NYU itself, I felt students were paying a tremendous amount of money for really crappy treatment by the administration, particularly with respect to financial aid and the registrar. Great professors, though.

Kay

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 17:18:58 -0500

Every single damn time there's a post about NYU, some jackass (or a gaggle of jackasses) has to talk about how nyu students are just spoiled rich kids from the 'burbs, that they don't care about the community, they've made living in the village HORRIBLE (downright UNBEARABLE!!!) because now there are places like Whole Foods and Diesel and Starbucks around the corner to cater to the needs of these dregs of society! These NYU students! Get over it, people, and shut up about the NYU students already. Here's a REAL reality check - they're just kids going to a good private college in the 21st century. They're no different from the kids at Harvard who are paying about $45,000/year, or the kids at Georgetown paying $42,000/year, or the kids at Duke or Hopkins paying $44,000/year. Are all of you ppl. who vilify NYU students going to rant and rave about how horrible and spoiled the kids are on those campuses? You think those places are teaming with self-made graduates who never got one dime from mom and dad? Is this a raging case of NIMBY? Or what?? At the end of the day, who cares how students are paying for their educations? Stop bad-mouthing a whole student body and save your bile to dash the dreams of your own children come college time.

hijiki

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:57:46 -0500

well, many scholarships are merit-based so if, as a high-school student, you worked your ass off and exploited your talents with the purpose of earning one, then you are still self-made. you still earned the money through your work, it just wasn't guaranteed up front.

REALITY CHECK

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 16:08:51 -0500

It's nearly impossible to pay your own way in a school that expensive (and without a degree because you haven't earned it yet), and live in NYC unless you have some outside help. Even if you got a big student loan, the credit rating of your well-off mom and dad's co-signature helped secure it. If you got a grant or scholarship, that means someone *else* paid, not you. I'll be damned if there's more than a handful of students at NYU that are truly self-made and actually paid for housing and school with no outside intervention.

Rachel

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 15:25:56 -0500

>>NYU is a private school and He, fully aware of the costs, chose to go there. I know it costs a lot (I paid my way through two years of grad school), but it's not like you don't know what it cost ahead of time. The problem with NYU is that they give next to NO FINANCIAL AID. There are lots of private colleges that cost about the same as NYU, but they give away lots of need-based financial aid, unlike NYU. NYU ranks #1 on Princeton Review's "Students Dissatisfied with Financial Aid," and deserves it. Why NYU doesn't give that much money away is simple: lack of alumni donations and their immense spending on recruiting top students accross the country, by giving away merit scholarships, luring top dollar professors, constructing new buildings etc. In the past 10/15 years, NYU has shot from an average private school to one the top private universities in the country. Their spending obviously worked, but their students (and parents) cannot afford it. Yes, NYU has a great handful of rich kids, but there are MANY students that are paying their own way and upset about NYU's lack of compassion concerning the costs of attending their school.

meesalikeu

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 14:08:21 -0500

nyu is one of the most expensive private colleges in the country. shocking? naah. now what would be shocking would be to see if he could find any of the students who actually paid their own fees thru school w/o help from mommy or daddy warbucks. now that would be shocking!

Drew

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 13:15:44 -0500

NYU is a private school and He, fully aware of the costs, chose to go there. I know it costs a lot (I paid my way through two years of grad school), but it's not like you don't know what it cost ahead of time.

papillon

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 12:02:27 -0500

Both the current version of Photoshop and most new color copiers have image recognition algorithms that prevent you from copying or scanning new currency (old twenties work, I hear). It's an issue for advertising (how to get an image of a bill for an ad or similar use), though I don't think making 100% copies for a shoot like this would be legal.

Lar

Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:59:30 -0500

Is that the same Gary He from Stuy? The one with all the commotion a few years ago?