BARNARD COLLEGE — In a shocking move, Barnard College has raised its application fee from $65 to a prospective student’s firstborn child. The change comes after the new Dean of Admissions, Jennifer “Rumpelstiltskin” Fondiller, was chosen to alleviate a financial deficit during application season.
“I really think that this is a good replacement for the application fee, which is so challenging for students from low-income families to meet,” the new dean was quoted as saying. “It offsets at least half the price.”
However, Fondiller admitted that the fee change was also in the interest of the institution. “As you can imagine, when most of your students are majoring in some combination of Gender Studies, Literature, and Dance, alumnae donations are not exactly free-flowing. Oftentimes, our most successful graduates are the ones who marry Columbia econ majors, and pop out a couple trust fund babies. So we figured that instead of expecting our alumnae to sneak into their partners’ wallets to make a late-night donation, we’d just take one of their kids off their hands, trust fund and all. They probably won’t notice anyways—the nannies are normally in charge of postpartum (and sometimes prepartum) childcare.”
Many Barnard students are less than pleased with this institutional change. “We can’t expect prospies to think about childbirth at their stage,” said perennial protestor Rhea Warner BC ‘17. “They shouldn’t have to panic about that kind of thing until the first Sunday morning of NSOP.”
“College debt is already out of control! Students can’t afford to wait another nine months to pay everything off,” continued Warner. “This is too heavy a burden to carry to term.”
When asked about those who decide against having children or can’t bear any, Dean Fondiller mentioned that there is an easy workaround. “We’ll settle for someone else’s first-born child, if an issue arises. We’re not picky.”
As of press time, a first-born exchange forum had already popped up on College Confidential.
IN OTHER NEWS
