How Much Does It Cost to Use Sidewalks?

For those who don't know, I'm headed back to college in a few weeks. I'm starting work on a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice and Public Safety at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) later this month.

I got my bill today for the fall semester, which I obviously knew was coming, and it was the amount I anticipated. No problems there.

But when I started looking into the payment options, I got a little irritated. You see, I had been planning to pay for my tuition and fees with my credit card. We pay our credit card in full every month, so we wouldn't be charged any interest, and the bonus for doing that is that 1% of our purchases on that card go toward our kids' college funds. I thought it would be pretty cool to contribute to my kids' education while paying for my own education.

Well, that's not going to happen. I can pay IUPUI with a credit card, but there is a 2.7% service fee charged by a third-party company! WTF?! This third-party company is going to make $65.00, just off of me! And I'm just going to school part-time! There are about 22,000 undergraduate students at IUPUI, and another 8000 graduate students, so if they all pay with a credit card....... let's see ....... carry the 4 ........ move the decimal point ...... multiply by .027 ....... and ........ holy crap! That company is making a killing off of students! It doesn't take a college degree to know that the 2.7% fee I'm going to be charged is more than the 1% that will go into my kids' college funds, so I guess the credit card is out.

So, I thought, I see that I can divide this amount into four payments throughout the semester. That'd be cool. I have all the money for school in my savings account, so I figured I could make four payments, and meanwhile, some of that school money is still sitting in savings, earning interest.

But no. There is, of course, a service fee for making payments. And what is that service fee? $15.00. PER PAYMENT! Seriously?! It costs the university $60.00 to keep track of one student's payments?! The shit is all automated, I'm sure! I know that virtually every single e-mail I've ever gotten from IUPUI thus far has been automated, so you can't tell me that there is a steamy, smoke-filled warehouse somewhere on campus, full of dirty, malnourished children slaving away for 20 hours a day over an abacus to figure out payments. There are 30,000 students at IUPUI, and if all of them made payments, that's 30,000 x $60 ....... $1.8 million EACH SEMESTER. Even if only half of the students make payments, that's a cool $900,000 per semester, just in service fees! For what I'm virtually certain is an automated service! What a load of shit!

Granted, I haven't had to pay for college in 14 years, so I'm sure there were ludicrous fees back then, too, that I've just forgotten about over the years. And IUPUI points out on their website that other schools do this, too (like that makes it okay). But it still kind of irks me that I'm giving IUPUI $2400.00 for one semester's worth of education, and they want to nickel and dime me to death with asinine fees on services that are commonplace in today's society. I wonder if I'm going to be charged for the oxygen I consume on campus, too. $4.00 per breath. Exhaling is 50 cents extra.

I guess I should feel fortunate that I'm not going to Indiana University - Bloomington--the mother ship of the IU system. They don't even accept credit cards at all. Makes me wonder if they have the internet yet in Bloomington. Or running water.

So I guess I'll scrounge around and see if I have any checks left. I can't remember the last time I paid anything with a check, this being the Computer Age and all. Then I'll have to go buy a stamp, because I know I don't have any of those anymore. How much is a stamp nowadays, anyway? $5.00? Is snail mail even still in existence? I'll write a check for the full amount, and send it by Pony Express or carrier pigeon to IUPUI.

Gosh, now that I think about it, I sure hope they accept checks. Because I'm fresh out of gold bullion, and my horse-drawn carriage is in the shop.