COLUMN: No need for logo-bearing sugar packets

From Melissa Wong's, "Days Like This," Fall '99 From Melissa Wong's, "Days Like This," Fall '99You could buy a condo in Florida for the cost of a Penn education. That's not an easy burden to shoulder, but most parents and students know that it is the price you have to pay. Of course, if the University needs a certain amount to keep the blue-light phones in working order or to pay the Spectaguard who locks me out of my building every Sunday at 2 a.m., students would be willing and should be expected to pay. But with the skyrocketing costs of college across America, it is all the more necessary to set tuition rates only as high as necessary costs dictate. And while other Ivy League universities are now offering more scholarships and grants and better financial-aid packages to incoming freshmen, Penn has fallen behind in minimizing the costs of an education. Unfortunately, logo-bearing sugar packets are the least of Penn's problems when it comes to misguided spending. Penn is planning to spend $180 million renovating the Hamilton Village dormitories and adding several new residences. Plans include a more elaborate 40th Street entrance to Hamilton Village and a variety of projects designed to increase the area's aesthetic appeal. While this would be a nice improvement, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the high rises are in desperate need of renovation from within. It would be money better spent if we made it a priority to improve the poor heating, cooling and plumbing of the buildings -- hundreds of high rise residents would be much happier to be done with freezing cold showers in December than to be reading about yet another architect hired by Penn to plan for the future. Even if Penn does get around to gutting the building five years down the road, there is no reason students should have to suffer in the meantime. Another case of misdirection of tuition dollars is the way Penn uses part of the $216 technology fee we all paid this summer. Is it really necessary for every student at Penn to help pay for the installation of GreekNet, which will wire off-campus fraternities and sororities with Ethernet access? In the meantime, College and Engineering students are coping with substandard technological and multi-media equipment, resources the technology fee should be paying to replace. Unnecessary spending is not just an issue of too-high tuitions. It's not as if Penn is providing for all of its needs and then spending extra money on extra things. The truth is, Penn doesn't even have the money for everything it needs to be paying for. That's why students must write tuition checks out to the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania every month for sums with way too many digits. That's why representatives from the Penn Fund call my home at 9 a.m. to ask my parents for a charitable donation of $40 or more. If we were to cut spending on less important items, perhaps Penn would be better able keep at bay, or even lower, the rising tuition costs that all Penn students must pay. Only then can we compete with the more generous offers that schools like Princeton provide in the form of merit-based grants. We simply do not have the luxury to waste money on things that Penn and its students and faculty can easily do without. Not that it's easy to forgo those Penn sugar packets in the morning. Still, I suppose one could go for the Sweet n' Lo instead.