How Not to Waste a Northwestern Education

by Sharlyn Grace

Yeah, the cost of attending Northwestern seems like a lot. In fact, the average annual cost of tuition, room and board, personal expenses, etc. as an undergraduate is about equal to the mean household income in the United States ($42,228 in 2001 according to the U.S. census). For students not in the richest 20% of American households which account for 50% of the nation's income, that average is much lower. For those of us not in the top fifth of the income bracket, the cost of attending Northwestern is usually considerably above our means.

But if you think about it, the amount of each of our tuitions is nothing when compared to Northwestern's budget, which totals over $1 billion a year. That money is evident in almost every aspect of campus life; we can't escape it. And no matter what we thought when we first saw campus, we hardly think twice about it anymore, and we never stop to appreciate the glossy new Ford center or the marble floors of Kellogg.

It's easy to get used to the high standards of living around campus (and Evanston) and take our privileges as Northwestern students for granted. We live in a predominantly wealthy area on a campus full of school-sponsored speakers, programs, and events for every night of the week. If there was a little less entertainment we just might wander into the city, even just south into Rogers Park or into the less affluent areas of Evanston, where the realities of minimum wage jobs and poverty dare to show their faces. Students who venture off campus only to shop on Michigan Avenue might not have realized we're really living the high life here on campus. Sure, it's not a picnic; there is a lot of academic work and planning to be done. But there's help there as well, with your freshman adviser, your major adviser, your minor adviser, the study abroad adviser, teaching assistants, free tutors, and the career services office.

I must admit I'm a little squeamish about all this help and advice we're being given. I'm a little worried about the chauffeured education I'm receiving and its impact on me. Is it possible I won't be as resourceful as if I'd had to tough it out on my own and figure out everything myself? Maybe. But I'm even more worried about the impact of the university itself on how we think about the world. Northwestern is a big, expensive place, full of rich, important people trying to teach us how to be as "successful" as they are.

But I don't think I want to be successful like that. Making money in a manner which requires the subjugation of another person isn't success. It's not among my life goals.

Being taught to find the lowest production costs and the highest gross income undeniably has an effect on students. Efficiency isn't always what matters most - there's a reason production costs are low in China. Yes, the stock market will reap benefits through the investment of social security funds. "More investors is good for America; profit will be made." But is it good for the Americans whose average benefits will be reduced and whose long years of paying supposedly reimbursable taxes could turn to nothing in a bear market?

I am not saying that all people of means make their profit by exploitation of others or that every professor or economics student supports it. But I am saying we should be aware of our impact. We shouldn't get caught up in the show of things, even though our culture requires pomp. It demands we get caught up in consuming, and buy even more impressive things, and then put our purchases on exhibition. Our university falls right in line, building bigger and better facilities, organizing more elaborate events to keep us entertained and impressed. They have to in order to compete, and they must be doing something right, because we're all here.

So we see the need to out-consume each other, and we're taught that pleasant superficial qualities go hand in hand with amazing research opportunities and world-renowned professors. Have the beauty of campuses and the numbers of fountains and gardens become not just the icing on the cake, but the whole cake? Every day we're taught to concentrate on these materialistic aspects of our world, and we're swept up in them. We're all active participants. Surely you've noticed the Louis Vuitton bags getting larger and more conspicuous over the years.

So by enrolling at Northwestern and learning how to make money and conspicuously consume, and move up in the world to a place befitting a graduate of a prestigious university, are we just continuing the cycle? Or can we realize what's going on and start working to change the system from within? Obviously, we'll need money to survive, and what better place to receive an incredible education and undergraduate experience complete with a decent job upon graduation than Northwestern? We'll be better educated to face the horrors caused by oversimplification of profit in a selfish economy, and we'll have the contacts to start getting involved right away. Even before graduation, opportunities abound for the student interested in activism or volunteering in Evanston, Chicago, and anywhere else in the United States if you talk to Alternative Student Breaks.

We have several activist groups on campus, and we can't forget about the School of Education and Social Policy right here under our noses. And the Joint Center for Poverty Research we share with the University of Chicago whose office sits along our daily path on Sheridan. There are a ton of opportunities to examine important issues in our world, and being a student here opens up many doors not available at less powerful or less prestigious colleges.

If you express interest in one of these areas, you can easily contact a knowledgeable adviser for more information. They can probably even set you up with an interview of some sort. It's fairly easy to get your foot in the door and get hands-on experience when you care about an issue. And all this experience will only make it easier to find a job after graduation, get involved in bigger organizations and take on higher positions in which you can wield your power for good.

We can't ignore the fact it takes money to get anything accomplished in the world (or even just around campus). Relief and charitable organizations know this, and their budgets show it, just like ours. Yet the World Wildlife Fund has accomplished many of its goals around the globe with an annual budget of only $300 million, less than a third of Northwestern's. Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) operates medical relief sites worldwide with a measly $270 million budget. When put into this perspective, Northwestern's budget is even larger than it seems at first glance. Our opportunities are concentrated on a small group of people and they're even more exorbitant than we thought.

Each of our individual college educations is supposed to be worth well over $150,000 by the time we graduate. But too many of us get caught up in chasing the unimportant things, be it the "easy A" schedule or the hot guy in our econ class. We're being offered an incredible educational experience in our years here, and when we spend our days constantly sheltered by our beautiful and opulent campus, we can forget what needs to be done in the world beyond Northwestern. We are given the tools to do whatever it is that moves us, and goodness knows we're paying enough for them. But when it comes right down to it, the responsibility to distribute that expensive knowledge and experience is all ours. As John Naisbitt said, "the new source of power is not money in the hands of a few, but information in the hands of many."