For seniors, the end is very much in sight. Classes are winding down, finals are looming, and Senior Week is right around the corner.
Ah, yes, Senior Week. A time when the Class of 2009 can just relax and spend time with their friends while enjoying a Duck Tour, a Red Sox game, Senior Gala and a myriad of other activities — if they can afford it.
Events during Senior Week are far from cheap. Interested in learning about Boston on a Duck Tour? That'll be $30. Watching Big Papi at Fenway? Forty big ones. And Gala? Well, that'll set you back a whole $50.
And that doesn't even cover the cost of renting a tuxedo (another $100 if you use a service that Tufts cut a deal with).
And then there's senior barbecue. One would think that this event would be free. One would be wrong. The school is charging $15 a head for some grub, drinks and conversation. While alcohol will be provided, it is unclear as to whether or not it's included in the cost of the ticket. If it isn't, then those ribs had better be amazing. If it is, then it seems unfair to charge the same amount to students who are underage (or, similarly, to those who don't drink).
Yes, Senior Week events cost an arm and a leg. And what's worse, it's not so much that Tufts is hosting events for the seniors … They're simply organizing them.
I say "organizing" because the majority of the events during Senior Week are being offered to the students at a cost (plus transportation fees). For example, the Senior Class Council is subsidizing the trip to Foxwoods by a meager $2.35 a person. This means that there's no real financial benefit to seniors to go on the official trip, as opposed to organizing a trip themselves.
Furthermore, organizing these activities themselves gives seniors the added convenience of not having to run on Tufts' schedule. Want to do some gambling at Foxwoods, but know that there's no way your initial stake will last you anywhere near five hours (the amount of time the Senior Week trip will be there for)? If you and your friends drive yourself there, you can leave whenever you'd like. And it'll certainly cost less than the $10 a person Tufts is charging to get there (true, you won't get those lovely Keno coupons, but who plays Keno anyway?).
However, the bigger issue at hand is that Tufts is doing little, if anything, to help absorb the cost to its students of attending these events.
This is especially interesting given all of the programming that was done this year to raise awareness about class issues. Furthermore, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate recently passed an initiative that would eliminate the cost of tickets for events put on by certain TCU funded groups.
While I support that initiative wholeheartedly, it seems somewhat peculiar that Tufts would try to support students financially by preventing them from having to pay $4 to see the end-of-semester Tufts Dance Collective show, yet they don't feel the need to help seniors have a good time on their way out the door.
These actions seem somewhat contradictory. Clearly Tufts is trying to make events open for all students, no matter what their financial situations happen to be. Yet a blind eye is being turned toward the most expensive of these events — ones that the entire senior class is strongly encouraged to attend as a final act of bonding.
The question that Tufts needs to ask itself is this: Do we want to make Senior Week events fiscally accessible to all outgoing students, or do we want to make sure we maintain a pretty bottom line?
The class divide at Tufts is something that already is garnering attention from the Senate. With the economy in the shape that it's in, it's likely that this divide is only going to grow wider in the coming years.
I'm not asking that Tufts foot the bill entirely for these events, but is it so much to ask that they at least subsidize them by 50 percent? Going back to that Duck Tour, the total cost for the event is $3,240 (108 tickets at $30 apiece). If Tufts were to cover half of that, we're talking about a hit of a little over $1,600. Surely the school could swallow that in order to provide some final lasting memories for seniors who have paid much more during their time on the Hill.
I realize that the cost of Senior Week events at Tufts is comparable to Senior Week events at other Boston area schools, but that doesn't mean that Tufts can't buck the trend and throw us a financial bone.
I also realize that it's far too late for anything to change for this year. However, if Tufts truly wishes to address the issues of class disparity facing the student body, it needs to act soon, perhaps by using some of the recovered funds to set up a Senior Week endowment.
I thought that after I dropped $200,000 on my education over the past four years, Tufts would at least be willing to entertain my peers and me by helping pay for tickets to a Sox game, a tour of Boston and some barbecue.
Apparently I was wrong.
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Adam Fried is a senior majoring in architectural studies.
