The University of Colorado at Boulder has adopted a new "Forever Buffs" fee. The one time $70 charge goes directly to the alumni association and grants all undergraduate students membership status.
Nathan Jeffries is a recent CU graduate and expressed no desire to be a member of the association.
"If they are going to take $70 from each student, they should invest it making the academic environment better, not a membership fee to an organization that students cannot opt-out of."
The school is claiming that being a member of the alumni gives you all kinds of great benefits, if that were really true they would not have to force people to pay for it. If the benefits really did outweigh the costs, then it would make sense to voluntarily join and pay dues.
That sounds very fishy. My son starts at CU this year and has been getting a lot of Junk mail on various different organizations that claim to have tons of benefits, yet are very vague on what they are.
I've advised he not join any till after he's been there a while and can determine which ones actually offer value.
Posted by: Shawn | May 24, 2009 at 08:58 AM