university dicks
College and University enrollment is down in the area. No wonder, right? I mean, who would want to send their bright eyed young one to a blighted, crime ridden city? As the article mentions, this will probably not be a long-term problem, which would be bad for the city if such were the case.
If I were a parent, I wouldn’t send my child to school here for a different reason, however. You see, I was a Tulane student in the midst of the storm, and they treated me so horribly in the wake of the accident I still see red every time I think of what they did. I had to go to another school to finish my degree (thank you Brown University!) and Tulane STILL CHARGED ME FOR A SEMESTER OF TUITION! Yes, I had to shell out thousands of $ that I didn’t have for services not rendered by an academic institution. Why did I not have the money you ask? Well, because Tulane kept my student loan check that was disbursed to me and denied it for four months. Sallie Mae kept telling me they had given it to me, and Tulane kept lying to me about it. Yes. They stole money loaned to me for four months, disbursed it to me in January, and then charged me for a semester after I came back to NOLA from the pristine Ivy League campus of the northeast where people looked at me like I was St. Andrew crack whore every time I explained that “now that I have my MS, I am going back to NOLA to see what I can do!”
What did I do when I came back? I bent over, spread ‘em, and paid my Tulane bill and swore never to speak well of their administration again. I can’t deny that I got one hell of an education, but I think Scott Cowen, the president of Tulane, made some huge mistakes. Charging students for classes they did not, could not attend does not make for a good PR campaign to encourage new students to apply. Imagine those 18 year olds who spent at least a year deciding where to go to school who had to attend elsewhere in a snap decision, and then were told that they were contractually obligated to return to Tulane in January (Tulane somehow managed to coerce universities that accepted Tulane students for a semester to deny Tulane students applications to continue their education at those universities so that they would have to return to Tulane in January).
So fuck you, Mr Cowen. I don’t like to be vindictive, but here I go: someday I hope someone kicks you really hard when you are down and then tells you that you should like it because it is what is best for your home.
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I planned not to respond to this because I don’t really care about your whining about losing alittle money when an entire university could have gone under, but I would like to at least point out that you are not really being fully honest when saying you paid for a semester you did not have. I have friends that both went to other schools and that took the semester off after the hurricane. In both either case the money you paid tulane was used to get you into another school for free or if you did not attend classes elsewhere then it was rolled over to your spring semester. as for the delay in sending you some loan money, its not like they had a hurricane and destroyed city to deal with. Your right, they should have dropped everything and made sure you had a few extra dollars in providence. be happy another school took you in and you had the chance to finish without delaying what I am sure is an important carreer by 4 months so you could have finished at tulane.
On the other hand, its nice to know you went back to NO to help out. Thats great! But don’t complain about your minor setbacks when you can look around you and see much larger problems.
Actually, I paid for a semester I didn’t have. The money was not rolled into another semester - even if it were not my last, grad students were not allowed to participate in the ‘lagniappe’ semester that was offered. Also, the money did not go to Brown - Brown dropped my tuition since they knew that I still had to pay Tulane. I think I deserve to ‘whine’ - as do all those parents that have filed a class action lawsuit and subsequently pulled their students out as soon as the spring semester was over.
the onlly reason brown did not charge is because they agreed to allow the tulane tuition to count in place of theirs. if you had been given your money form tulane back it would have then had to go to brown. you are very naive to think brown would let you come for free without an agreement with tulane.
Hi Jack,
I find it very interesting that you know more about this situation than I do. Brown actually did let me go to their university for free - you can contact them and they can tell you all about the special (and generous) arrangements that they made to accomodate the Tulane students who were being charged for the semester by Tulane. There is a man named Sidney Frank who donated a large chunk of change to Brown to pay for our tuition.
Thanks for your comments, though. It is always nice to hear from people who like to set me straight about my life
I guess you did not really get my point in the two earlier comments. I really don’t care about your particular situation. I was simply pointing out that many, many tulane students are very pleased with how they were treated and are more than happy they were given the opportunity to spend a semester somewhere else rather than be set back 6 months in their education. you are posting a public opinion about your case and I was simply pointing out that yours is not the norm of what happened to most students. considering the numbers that have returned to conitnue at tulane clearly the majority is fine wiht the situation. and that all of the special things other schools did to accomadate tulane kids was done because of the quick repsonse of tulane to ask for the help and get all these schools to agree to help.
I have to disagree with the idea that the University should be allowed to sit on students’ money, and be forgiven simply because of the hurricane. Tulane did the same to me and it nearly ruined me financially. Now, the school wants their money before classes even start. I would call that a double standard. In addition, when most people were away, their tuition would have been lower at the other school. Tulane did not refund the difference. I call that price fixing.
The results of Katrina were clearly forseeable, it has been predicted in many scientific and disaster management papers. After Ivan, there were many people on television news warning of exactly what happened. Tulane did nothing to prepare, and is still unprepared in my opinion.
In addition to the financial problems, the school in my view really showed that students are their lowest priority by their actions. Initially, they set a withdrawal date in mid-September so as to force people to commit to the school when they knew so little about their future situations. They only backed down when there was a student uproar over this. When students tried to transfer, deans at the away schools were specifically asked not to permit this in order that Tulane might keep its students. In another instance, when a law student tried to get an exception because of allergy problems, the law school accused him of fraudulently creating the records and reported him to his bar, effectively ending his legal career. The law school and one of the deans is now defending a suit for slander, with potential damages in the millions.
To future students out there, I say stay away from Tulane.
Heather I agree with you without reservation, and your facts are all right. I know many Tulane grads who were deeply upset with the way Tulane behaved, and, if they could, pulled out. They were each dicked about horribly by the accounts department, who lied to them for months over where their money went.
Remember y’all, Tulane is a private university that charges sky high rates. Does it deserve charity? If it underinsured, it shouldn’t place the burden on the students, let alone do so in a brutal, bullying way.
I think what did it for many ex-students was the tone adopted in communications with them (see various law school stories - easily googleable). It is the sort of backward institutionalized thinking that leads to Tulane asserting rights over money for services not offered that hampers the modernization of New Orleans as a whole. Tulane in particular has been due a shake up, and departing faculty will, long term, lead to that. However, the city overall, which has such an uneducated, bigoted view to young people genuinely looking to introduce enlightened thinking to the area, may take a few more hits before it rises from the flames.
There, that’s off my chest. Perhaps I should start my own blog for this stuff, eh?