Buying a Chicken in Guadalajara

Well, I suppose I oughtn't to have been so quick to crow about the possibility of getting good financial aid money out of NYU. Ed McMahon may yet come to my door, but he won't be delivering anything from New York University.

Today, I finally spoke to someone at NYU--three someones, in fact. The first was what I am beginning to suspect is the run-of-the-mill bureaucrat in Greenwich Village--uninterested and unhelpful. I explained to her that, having received a notice that an "admissions packet" with financial aid information had been sent to me, I needed to obtain the amounts of my financial aid awards (if any), because NYU had given me a deadline of April 15th to accept or decline my offer of admission. I explained as nicely as I could that making such a decision was impossible without this information, and that, as an actual letter from NYU would likely take a month or more to reach me in Russia, I needed the letter e-mailed to me.

This woman told me rather pitiliessly that NYU had a policy of not sending out such information by e-mail or giving it out over the phone. She told me that I might--emphasis on might--be able to retrieve it through an online system, but she couldn't absolutely guarantee it.

After several vain attempts at logging into this system, I decided to try contacting someone in my program, thinking I would likely encounter greater sympathy for my plight. Indeed, I did manage to get a sympathetic soul, who put me in touch with someone else in the financial aid office. This person told me the information would not be available online until May, but she offered to tell me what I needed to know over the phone.

It turns out that I have received some grant money from NYU, but not very much. In fact, I've received about $10,000 less than at Penn, and the estimated cost of attendance (factoring in tuition, housing, books, and various miscellany) is $7,000 more in Manhattan than in West Philly. This at least is what I gathered from the official numbers both schools have given me in their "sample budgets," though I suspect some of the numbers from both schools are inflated ($20,000 for nine months' room and board in New York? Please--I've managed to stay fed and housed in New York for much less). I am at a total loss as to what either school chooses to lump under "miscellaneous expenses". And I am at an even greater loss as to just what some of the "fees" mentioned actually pay for.

The whole experience of dealing with financial aid reminds me of nothing so much as my favorite episode of Designing Women. In the episode, the anything-but-business-minded Suzanne promises one of the decorating firm's clients that if her furniture is not delivered by midnight, her entire job is free--an idea she admits to having gotten from pizza delivery. Unfortunately, that night, the firm's delivery van breaks down, forcing Charlene and Julia to have to buy a new van with a gun to their head. The women prove unequal to the task of dealing with a rapacious car salesman who turns even more rapacious when he learns how desperately they need a new van.

At the eleventh hour, however, spunky Mary Jo Shively comes into the car dealership and saves the day. She takes a look at the salesman's offer and starts crossing off all the padding he has tacked onto to cost of a simple delivery van--up to and including a $200 "gasoline charge" she claims even her 10-year-old son could tell was illegitimate.

As she is doing this, Mary Jo asks the salesman if he has ever bought a chicken in Guadalajara. Mary Jo apparently has, while supporting her ex-husband in medical school. As she describes it, the process of buying a chicken in guadalajara is as follows:

First, the seller quotes a price for the chicken, which seems perfectly modest and reasonable. Then, however, it turns out there is a separate charge to kill the chicken. And a separate charge to pluck the chicken. And on, and on, and on.

Graduate financial planning offices, as near as I can tell, have managed to do the chicken sellers of Guadalajara one better. First, they quote a price for tuition which seems, if not exactly cheap, at least in line with what undergraduate tuition is these days. Then they tack on what seem like outrageous amounts of money for room, board (mind you, you find your own room and board in graduate school these days), and health insurance. And after all this, they make it impossible to know the real price--partly because such matters as housing and travel costs are declared to be within the student's control.

It's enough to get Frank Purdue to roll over in his grave.