So There I Am In The Campus Store, Ready To Support My School

[Seil]

So there I am in my campus store, ready to support my school and get a school sweatshirt and I was like "This one looks neat." and then I looked at the price and was like "For $68.79 I could just get a shirt and scribble VIU on it all neat-like."

Don't the people in the cafe and the bookstore and the student shops know that we're all poor, unemployed students? The reason we're paying tuition and textbook fees is that so hopefully down the line we can afford to pay outrageous sums for clothing. Now, I like hoodies as much as the next guy - in fact, I just bought my first hoodie this month, and it's really comfy and warm. But I dun wanna spend upwards of $50 for one.

What happened along the line for universities to start charging so much for clothing? Between tuition, student fees, textbooks and transportation, not to mention some students are living on campus, trying to support themselves and get food and such... Gee whiz.

[CelesJessa]

Originally Posted by Seil

What happened along the line for universities to start charging so much for clothing? Between tuition, student fees, textbooks and transportation, not to mention some students are living on campus, trying to support themselves and get food and such... Gee whiz.

Huh that's weird. At my college they practically give you free school t-shirts any chance they can get, especially freshman year. I'm super stingy with money but about half of my t-shirt collection is university-clothing. (I'm pretty sure the bookstore had a "buy one, get two free" deal going on at some point.)

Although I imagine the sweatshirts and stuff are more expensive to the point of what you're talking about.

[Funka Genocide]

That is pretty ridiculous. I have bought just as much over priced clothing as the next guy (well... as the next clothing obsessed metrosexual guy) but I'd never spend that much on a hoodie.

Hoodies are meant to be tossed on when you just don't give a fuck, they're super casual clothes for super casual times. Like playing football in the mud or whatever. I could never understand why people would pay such exorbitant prices for trashy looking clothes. Same thing with sports jerseys and stupid t shirts. Or sports shoes that are only worn for the sake of "fashion."

It's utilitarian clothes, its not designed to look good. I only pay high prices for clothes that makes me look like I pay high prices for my clothes.

[bluestarultor]

Actually, schools need all the money they can get. The textbook industry pretty much screws them as much as the students and I'm pretty sure most of the money they get in goes to paying their giant staff and utilities and stuff. A lot of schools are trying to cut back now because of the economic crisis and I think I heard some talk that Wisconsin schools were getting less funding this year across the board.

[Osterbaum]

Originally Posted by Seil

What happened along the line for universities to start charging so much for clothing? Between tuition, student fees, textbooks and transportation, not to mention some students are living on campus, trying to support themselves and get food and such... Gee whiz.

Classical liberalism and capitalism happened.

[TopHatAssassin]

T-shirts at my school are fairly cheap (but then again judging be feel the material may not be so hot either, I donno). I'm not sure about sweaters and the heavier things, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were in a similar price range upwards of $50.

Originally Posted by Seil

Don't the people in the cafe and the bookstore and the student shops know that we're all poor, unemployed students?

Of course they do! They just don't care. :p

Funny story! Last year the school bookstore actually had an online quiz-type thing where you had to answer questions about what the bookstore was doing with your money, and every answer was about how they were trying to help the students. It was pretty much a campaign about how they're not trying to screw us all over with book prices. There was a prize, some sort of scooter or something, but I didn't win.

[DarkDrgon]

It even haqppens in High school. My classes senior sweats minimum package was $70 for a crappy T-shirt and aweful hoody.

I beat the system by buying a $10 hoody, $1 carboard box, and $3 spray paint can and stenciling up my own.

[Hanuman]

Sounds like Dark Drgon got gouged on the cardboard. Dude, walk around alleys and find a bin saying CARDBOARD on it (behind 1/10th the high traffic shops aprox), there is like 200LBS of cardboard in there free to anyone all the time.


School advertisement is counter-intuitive. You spend extra money on clothes, the money goes to the school but the advertisement only supports school spirit. What would be MORE awesome is to have party funds, get together an awesome group of like 25 people, all chip in $10 every week and go nuts, that'd be dishing funds back into the students AND raising school spirit.

OR

Just donate directly to the school and then go to a swap party.

[DarkDrgon]

It was a big box, I made like 10 elaborate stencils and the school one, so I dont feel too bad.

[phil_]

Originally Posted by Lev

Just donate directly to the school and then go to a swap party.

I'll donate to my school as soon as they donate a few classes my way.