Dear Colleges

So, ummm.. Yeah. We tackled the freshmen in college, providing them with wise words to guide them through the insufferable bullshit factory that is college. Today, we're gonna extend a helping hand to the people that make all the bullshit possible, the colleges themselves. This is more tongue-in-cheek than the previous post, so if you're an administrator, please don't cut my financial aid or something stupid like that. It's just jokes (kinda)...

So, now that school is in session (for damn near everyone but me), all the financial aid bills are coming in, classes are starting, and everything is going back to norman ($10 to anyone who can tell me where "back to Norman" came from). But alas, is everything really gravy on college campuses? In short, no. If you ask the average college student if he's completely satisfied with his experience, I guarantee he'll have more than a few gripes to send to the Dean. As with any institution, there will be imperfections, but it seems like college is becoming infused with more and more BS by the day. Check out some ways for our higher educations institutions to raise their standards even higher:

1. Step the food up. No, I'm serious. If you ask 9 out of 10 college students what they could improve on campus, this is the first thing. I'm 100% sure, I'm not the only undergraduate student on the planet who's tired of nasty meats, under or overcooked veggies, rock hard cookies and brownies, bad conditions in eating places or the ubiquitous lack of food at times. It's a sad day and age when we have to be subjected to meal plans that take our money more than take our appetites down. Seriously, stomach viruses aside, I'd love to see a college campus whose food is as good on orientation day (with parents in attendance) as it is in the middle of November. It always seems like the food on campus gets worse and worse as the year goes on. My stomach and wallet shouldn't be subjected to that. I'm sure out of the fifty stacks you're squeezing out of your thousands of students, you can find some guap in there to give us food suitable for students not inmates...

2. (via the incomparable Joshua Bennett)Increased diversity would be a pretty good idea. Not that I have a problem with people of any background, but it would be a nice touch to see a different mix in my classes. For those of you not culturally savvy to see through the hidden meaning in my rhetoric: I'm tired of being the only black kid in my class. Yeah, I've been doing it for a while. Yeah, I can still blow people's minds if they get into racially charged arguments. But once, just once, I'd like to be able to sit back and let the discourse take place without everyone looking to me for the "black opinion". On another note, diversity doesn't just mean race. It means people of different CULTURAL backgrounds, whether different economically, educationally, regionally, or whatever. It's not enough to put an insert in your brochure talking about how many different races attend the school. It has to be a concerted effort to get ideologies of every kind into the melting pot. We as students would get a lot more than diplomas if that were the case...

3. Public safety, and campus police, BACK OFF. Whether it's random interrogations because of less-than-silent music, impromptu parties broken up, being accosted for strange "smells", or just the stare of Johnny Law making me uncomfortable as a black man, campus police 9 times out of 10 are not the answer. Not only do these rent-a-cops have no real authority over us, other than to call the real police, their understanding of the law in and of itself is shaky enough. I've seen public safety officers violate the rights of my peers on numerous occasions, entering into their domiciles without warrant, holding them against their will and even beating them unjustly in public. These men and women aren't real police officers for a reason, and I don't think it's because cities are running out of funding for them. Perhaps more attention should be paid to the spirit of the rules rather than the enforcement. Perhaps the rules should be revised. I'm not an administrator, so my bearing on this issue is strictly one-sided. However, for the few actual risks to campus safety, there seem to be a great deal of officers standing around annoying students. 7-11 is a mini-mart, not a campus safety hangout...

4. Cut the bureaucracy. No, this is my biggest gripe of all. College is such a business. Though the websites may say .edu, and they may seem all warm and fuzzy on the brochures, colleges are truly out for one thing: money. By that token, you guys will stop at nothing to make our money, your money. If I'm lying, give me back a substantial amount of my tuition and you can stop reading this post. But, given that I am right, why is it that when my money comes into play, you guys can take all you want, but the prospect of giving turns a college into Ebenezer Scrooge? Why is it that I can be put on hold for 30 minutes when trying to determine my financial aid status for the year, but you can call me immediately when you want to collect money? Is it just me, or have the educational and enrichment aspects of college gone haywire? Even before college, we have to pay to take a test that evaluates us for college. Hell, we even have to pay to apply for college. Don't get me wrong. I understand that higher education has its price, but somewhere a line must be drawn. Stop squeezing me for ever penny I have, and educate me in the way you so eloquently swindled me into buying into three years ago...

5. Speaking of educating me, stop understaffing your classes. If you as an institution are going to be swindling my money away for whatever maniacal purposes have you, at least make sure the classes you purport to have are there. Seriously, I'm tired of trying to register and having each class I WANT and NEED to take filled up by God knows who. To me, if you see where a class is in high demand with a low supply, the job of the college is to meet that demand by adding an extra supply of classes (simple economics, right?). That way every student who wants a certain class, gets it. If a class is damn near empty, then why even have multiple sections of it? Doesn't that seem counterproductive? Hell, doesn't that seem plain old stupid? It does. So why then are colleges struggling to find classes for their students? Maybe I'm crazy, but the practice of understaffing academic departments just so you don't have to add an extra section is robbery, especially when the department is a strong point of the school. Teach me what you need to, and stop making me take a muddled, circumspect route to my diploma...

That's all for the colleges. It's sad that in a day where higher education is a must, the purveyors of that amenity are finding ways to swindle us students into an underwhelming version of it. Administrators can never complain about unhappy students if they aren't willing to simply address the (pressing) needs of their students. Not to gripe or bitch or whine, but are any of those demands that egregious? They seem like pretty reasonable things to ask of colleges. Readers, what do you think? Is college a starting to rip you off? Do you wish they would give as much as they take? Toss some comments either at my e-mail or in the box below and listen to another college themed jam...