With YalePrivilege$, buy yourself a 'first-class' education

By Larry Switzky

When you travel on a luxury airliner, you expect certain amenities based on the amount of money that you pay. An extra hundred bucks might get you free cognac and an acceptable distance from crying babies. Another $500 might put you in seats where the air bag that drops from the ceiling in the event of cabin depressurization has real oxygen rather than low-grade, military-surplus "Oxytine." For $1000, you can sit back in Barcaloungers, relax, and enjoy all the in-flight movies and duty-free your heart desires.

If one can expect this kind of treatment from other service industries, then why not from a five-star University? For the new millennium, Yale will present a new program that allows you all the service and elitism your money can buy. Welcome to the age of YalePrivilege$^TM.

YalePrivilege$^TM allows you to select from a variety of levels:

For the normal $30,000 tuition rate, you belong to the Bulldog level. This allows you to continue with the level of high-quality education and benefits that you currently enjoy.

At the $40,000 level, students join the Eli Club. Elis receive a free tote bag. They are also allowed into the Berkeley dining hall without a sponsor. All library fines are waived. And they are guaranteed a 3.7 GPA minimum.

At the $50,000 level, students become members of the Kingman Brewster, TD '41, Club. "Brews," as they will be affectionately known, enjoy all the benefits of being an Eli, with the added bonus of a free t-shirt, an autographed copy of Brooks Kelley's, BR '53, book, Yale: A History, as well as a 3.8 GPA minimum. As an added bonus, administrators will return their phone calls, even in regard to issues that they are not currently promoting.

YalePrivilege$^TM reserves its most splendid benefits for the Taft Club, at $75,000 a year. This level of membership, of course, allows its subscribers all the privileges of the lower classes. But it also gives them so much more. Besides being guaranteed a 3.9 GPA, "Tafties" will be presented with a University merit cup at graduation and will be inducted into the secret society of their choice (numbers are limited, so apply now; applicants to Skull and Bones, please include a pint of blood for requisite medical testing). A member of a distinguished alumni family will write a recommendation letter for a friend of their choice, guaranteeing said friend's admission into Yale's hallowed halls. And Tafties will also be given a key to the ultra-exclusive Taft Lounge, to be built in the space where the ailing Yale Co-Op currently stands. The Taft Lounge will have a 24-hour wet bar, special "secret" recruitment meetings from alumni of Fortune 500 companies, and floor shows by Yale faves like psychology Professor Peter Salovey, GRD '86. You also get to assault anyone you want on the Bulldog payment level without remonstrance from the Yale Police.

YalePrivilege$^TM is the latest program from Yale's Office of University Transactions (OUT). A division of the Provost's office established at the inception of President Levin's tenure, OUT has been working behind the scenes for years to help make a better Yale. Now, you may be thinking to yourself, I've never heard of this so-called office. But Yale has been selling OUT to a number of worthy interests for years, including Barnes & Noble and a variety of Broadway developers.

"If Yale could sell OUT to them, then why not to you, too?" asks Tom "Alberich" Skeapchate, OUT director for the past three years. Now, through YalePrivilege$^TM, it can! In a famous statement issued several years ago, President Levin announced his plan for "selective excellence" in academic areas, a desire to pursue certain majors in which Yale is currently superior, and to ignore potentially divisive new majors. "That's not entirely fair to students," Skeap-chate argued. "If he can select his excellence, then you, as an undergrad, should be able to select yours."

Remember the days of Stover, of the "tables down at Mory's," of the Fence Club where the height of your stove pipe hat and the purity of your lineage guaranteed you a spot on an enormous block of wood?

Those days can be yours again—for a price. And besides guaranteeing your own comfort, you can also help Yale in its time of need. With fears of a rapidly depleting endowment, rumors of inadequate funds to renovate all 12 residential colleges, a stiff penalty for English professors who post anything on the walls of the newly-restored Linsley-Chittenden, and an imminent need for tercentennial special events funds, Yale wants your help. "At other institutions, they might say give until it hurts," Skeapchate said. "Here, we say, give until it soothes."

Join us to help improve Yale, and to help yourself. With a little initiative—and a few grand—you can have the Yale of the past, and of your dreams—today!

Larry Switzky is a senior in Morse.

Back to Opinion...