<p>My daughter’s grad weekend was last weekend, and they stopped the family dinner dance at 12:15 (listed as going to 1am) and then stopped the vans running to the city where many families stay at 11pm!! for a few hundred extra bucks for drivers they could have made many families a lot less cranky?</p>
<p>Are there ways your kids schools “saves” money that are just stupid?</p>
<p>Yes - but it’s complicated.</p>
<p>This is my own experience, dating back to Lafayette College in the 80’s. I lived in an on campus apartment with 3 other girls. The campus provided orange decor - orange furniture, orange curtains, it was hideous. We took down the curtains and neatly stored them, hanging neutral cream curtains for the year. At the end of the year, before we had a chance to re-hang the original orange curtains, facilities did a surprise inspection and wrote us up for the “missing” curtains and they fined each of us. They would not reverse the fines even after we re-hung the original curtains the following day.</p>
<p>I thought it was a very petty beaureacrat type of decision. After graduation, when I received the first fundraising solicitation, I wrote back that I would not be a donor, and listed this incident as one of several ridiculous incidents of this type that had soured me on donating. Very penny-wise and pound-foolish IMO.</p>
<p>In the first few days after dorms are open…before official classes…
the dining halls are closed!!!</p>
<p>Freshmen don’t know where to eat and are expecting the dining halls to be open.
Upperclassmen who move in the 2 days prior–are eating at the towns restaurants since the dining halls are closed for as many as 6 days since move in!</p>
<p>BU grads used to receive a nice diploma holder at graduation. This year it was replaced by a flimsy piece of cardboard.</p>
<p>DS got locked out of his dorm during his last final exam at winter break! Apparently the dorms closed at 5pm and the last exam ended at 5pm. They wanted him to pay $25 to let him back in. In their defense, he could have asked for an extension, but didn’t realize he needed it!</p>
<p>I never found my kids’ undergrad to be cheap or chintzy (actually quite the opposite for a state school), but I do think that they should change graduation a bit and bring in keynote speakers. It just seems that with families and relatives flying in from all over, the event deserves a keynote speaker. </p>
<p>I don’t think the decision not to have a keynote is a money issue. After the big tornado they had bigwigs volunteering to do the keynote, yet the school declined. Don’t get that.</p>
<p>I’ve often remarked that my alma mater have discontinued or surcharge. I’ve later realized that there were even more benefits available if one so desired. There is no keynote speaker at graduation, but there is a prayer service instead, which confuses a lot of people as it’s a state flagship.</p>
<p>My sister’s college recently stopped providing paper toilet seat covers in its restrooms and hasn’t provided paper towels for many years.</p>
<p>Dean’s List certificates sent as PDF’s “suitable for framing”.</p>
<p>No complaints on University of Colorado speaker - Julie Andrews 
</p>
<p>She received a standing ovation BEFORE starting the speech. The students, parents and grandparents all seemed delighted with the choice. She gave a lovely speech, available on youtube.</p>
<p>S2’s big state u. sent his diploma in a flimsy cardboard envelope. It was bent and creased when it arrived at our house by regular U.S. Mail service. All the money we spent on his college education and this is what we get? </p>
<p>I called and complained. They sent a duplicate diploma…same packaging but thankfully not bent/crushed this time. Surely, out of thousands of graduates, we weren’t the only ones to get a damaged diploma. Wouldn’t it be easier to just do it right the first time?</p>
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<p>D made Dean’s list every semester and did not even receive a pdf. Her friends in other colleges at the same university received certificates in the mail.</p>
<p>Got my mba diploma in a mailing tube, which is where it has remained.</p>
<p>Fog Fog, I read your post about “no food for days after the dorms open” and thought “that’s what my daughter’s school does”. Then I saw your handle. Your kid goes to the same place. You’d think for the big bucks we are paying that they could feed them. Other side of the spectrum is expecting the kids to 1) pack 2) clean the suite 3) return keys and get out… sometimes within 18 hours of their last exam (and that 18 hours includes the time that people, even college kids, normally sleep)</p>
<p>but there is a prayer service instead, which confuses a lot of people as it’s a state flagship.</p>
<p>A “prayer service” suggests more than what it is. It’s nothing more than what Congress or whatever does…brings in one of the area’s clerical people to give a short generic prayer. A prayer service would be something a lot more substantial. </p>
<p>Being a public institution doesn’t forbid this since the grads aren’t minors and aren’t required to participate.</p>
<p>IU definitely does the ‘get out quick’ thing that others have mentioned. Last exam on Friday night is 7-9 pm and dorms close at noon the next day!</p>
<p>Outside of that…you have to pay $8 if you want to change your schedule after the initial 24 hour registration period (ie, you have 24 hours to set your schedule once you register the first time). I didn’t really see a lot of instances of ‘cheap’ outside of that–real university china in the sit down dining hall, constantly new flowers in the flowerbeds, etc.</p>
<p>One thing that really annoys me: extra fees for science labs ($200-400 a class). Shouldn’t these costs be built into the 40K+ tuition costs??? Seriously!</p>
<p>And this semester my D had the latest possible final (ended at 9pm) and was expected to move out by 9am the next morning. Cost extra to get an extension for later that afternoon.</p>
<p>One thing that really annoys me: extra fees for science labs ($200-400 a class). Shouldn’t these costs be built into the 40K+ tuition costs??? Seriously!</p>
<p>You’d think so, but it seems that tuition is for lectures. Since STEM classes have pricey labs (that other majors don’t), tuition doesn’t cover those. </p>
<p>I guess that the only alternative is to do what some schools do, and that’s to charge a higher tuition rate for STEM majors.</p>
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<p>On the other hand, the M in STEM (math) tends not to have lab courses. Meanwhile, non-STEM-major pre-meds take a lot of lab courses for pre-med purposes. Also, charging by major might introduce other inconsistencies for students who change major, or start undeclared while taking expensive lab courses and declare later.</p>
<p>If the school wanted to account for the higher cost courses, it would be more fair to charge lab fees by the course, but disclose potential costs up front in the cost of attendance pages. But then there would be other differential costs to consider, such as upper division courses generally being more costly than lower division courses, or students taking varying numbers of courses or credits. Charges based on all of these factors would result in a rather complicated and opaque tuition schedule.</p>
<p>Some schools have lower tuition but very high fees. The net is the same, except it distorts the value of “full tuition scholarship”. CU (CO) does that to some extent. It seem MA state schools even more so.</p>