Educators came out of the closet and declared themselves…, Capitalists.

What exactly does ‘not-for-profit’ mean?

Another month goes by and alas, another check is sent to the University. 

“So what,” my neighbor who has no children says, “You have money in the bank.”

“Yes, that is true,"  I respond as my dog rolls in the snow at our fee, “I was saving it for retirement, and the vet bills.  The dog had her checkup last week and..., well it did set me back a ways.”

“Okay, I see your point but you have social security too you know”. 

“Well yes..., I do have that.”

“So, you see, you’re all set.”

And therein lies the rub.  “All set for what?

“For retirement.”

I do a quick calculation.  “Let’s see, I live in New Jersey and each month I have to pay a lot of property tax, plus I’ll never have paid off the house by the time I’m sixty five, so basically the rent will be due.  And then there is that bit with medical expenses.  How much do you think we will pay each month for that when we retire?”

“Oh, hell aren’t you on a company plan.”

“Well I might be…, if I worked,” the dog listened to this last remark and tilted her head to one side.

“Oh yeah that’s right you don’t.   So how are your medical expenses these days?”  I suppose he wanted to change the subject, and I went along with it.

“Well, not as bad as when I first got out of the hospital.”

“Good, means you’re getting better.”

"The accident was three years ago, the medical expenses are not so bad now because, well because I’m not in the hospital, and I weaned myself off the medications and stopped physical therapy."

“Off medication, and stopped therapy?"  The dog and the neighbor both looked at me with a similar, quizzical expression.
“Cannot afford either of them.”

“Don’t you have insurance?”

“My wife does, in a sense..., I think, but every time I go to the doctor, or the physical therapist I have to pay out of my pocket, and the medicine was over 300 dollars a month.  Haven’t worked in three years, I cannot afford that one.  And the insurance company, well they might chip in but I think I have to use up all of my life savings before they do.  Is this something new with the insurance coverage these days?   They wont pay any money until my life savings are gone."

“Oh, kind of like the University ′eh…,” I’m not sure if it was the dog or my neighbor who asked that as they were both now down on all fours rolling around in the snow.

And while they rolled we were back, back at square one. 

Doesn’t the government have a program or something to help pay for college?

Oh, yes they do, unfortunately for us my wife makes a smidgen more than minimum wage, so we don’t qualify.  And since the accident, and my not getting back to work, well, we subsist on her earnings, and spend our savings to make rent.  We do live in NJ and rent here is very, very bad.  And..., we are not connected to any well know, powerful figure like a Hillary or a Barack.

“If the University costs so much why don’t you ask them for help?”  Is a question everyone throws at me.

I did, in fact I begged them for help, basically down on my knees.

And

And they told me to fill out the paperwork

And

When they saw that I had saved some money they smiled…, and held out their hand.

"And so, why don’t you take your daughter out of school?" 
This is the really big question and it is also where they have you by the cajones.  They know you will send your children to college (or University, or Graduate School) and it becomes like going to the doctor.  You will pay, even if they overcharge because there is nothing else you can do.  There is no government regulation putting a limit on it, and there is no clever industrialist minded group of intellectuals who will open a qualified school, and ask for less money than they can swindle out of a family.  It takes a strong, strong politician to try to argue against these absurd pricing structures, but the only people with enough backbone to fight this encroachment into our financial liberties are all those capitalists..., who work in the University.

Oh yes, the system, via the federal government, has some money for very, very poor people.  But for those who are on the edge, who have no work, but who have at one point in their lives swore off credit card double dipping and saved some money but are now out of work, for those people there is no answer.  Oh yes, there is, I forgot, one can get a job flipping burgers at dairy queen, except I would have to stand in line behind the teenagers for a job interview, and TBI survivors have to stand at the end of the line. 

So, let us look at those Capitalists embedded in the ‘not-for-profit’ university.  How much money does each school have in its war chest, also known as the endowment fund?  Boy that money could be invested in low risk, municipal bonds, couldn't it? And that muni investment would help create jobs and work in the good ol’ USA.  But all I read is that the money is overseas, looking to capitalize, like capitalists do, on low wage employees building whatever the fashionista of the day wants, for pennies.  If they did invest locally, in tax free municpal bonds, then that tax free interest income could be used to…, pay the tuition costs of its students.  Many colleges have over 1 Billion in these endowments.  At a tax free five percent return they would bring in over 50,000,000 dollars.  This is enough money to cover the total overpriced tuition, room and board for over 10,000 students.  Not bad.

Then there is the salary thing.  For a person out of work, taking all of his accumulated money, the money NOT spent over the years on a moment by moment impulse, to pay for his children’s college education so that said children will not have a payment the size of a home mortgage when they leave those hallowed grounds, what does this out of work person think of the salary structure at these ‘public, not-for-profit’ organizations?  Before answering that..., let’s take a look at the issue.

At a public university in one of the smallest states in the union the president of the school makes over 800,000 dollars.  Not bad, if you are a capitalist wealth-at-all-costs monger working in a for-profit organization geared to make money at the expense of the common man.  Hey…, wait a minute.  This sounds just like…, and this is why there is no difference between for-profits and not-for- profits.  The item du jour, whether it be handbags or diplomas, have no guarantees.  Oh sorry, the handbags do have a money back guarantee, the diplomas don’t.

Simple solution number one, which is coming from a conservative, value conscious proletariat who is a meddling in the middle-of-the-road sort of opinionated, poor louse: Cut the damn salary in half.  Even if you just take the president’s salary of the afore mentioned university and cut it in half, say down to a meager 400,000 dollars a year without reducing all the damn benefits that go with it, like his children’s tuition for free (another 200,000 or so per child) and without stealing support from the federal government, one could reduce the service-charge (read: yearly college costs) by 25% for over 40 students.  Wow! And what if you managed to get a few of those VP salaries cut down a bit too, hell you might be able to reduce college tuition dramatically for quite a few people, non?

            The comedian Jim Gaffigan says, “Don’t worry, there is a bunny.”  But in this case, there isn’t a bunny.  There are only greedy people, tied to a greedy organization called colleges who, like those in the medical field, will bring about the slow death of any semblance of a middle class in the USA.

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, he is attempting is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion.  You can find Saverio Monachino on www.comicfictionnoir.com.