SU needs to stop asking debt-ridden students to ‘Boost the ‘Cuse’

SU hosted its third annual 44-hour giving initiative, Boost the ‘Cuse, this week. The fundraising campaign started at 4 a.m. Nov. 5 and lasted through 11:59 p.m. the next day. 

Syracuse put on a show — dozens of emails and texts, social media posts, hashtags, giant stopwatches projected on university buildings, leaderboards, realtime updates, scavenger hunts, visits from Otto the Orange, a loaded french fry bar. 

Nearly 6,000 donors collectively raised upward of $1.69 million by the end of the initiative, per the website. The university achieved its goal. But it exploited its students, alumni and faculty to do it. 

Boost the ‘Cuse may be an exciting rallying cry for SU’s well-off and well-connected donors and alumni. But for many students and recent grads, it’s an insulting money grab from the university they paid nearly $70,000 to attend each year — an ingenuine attempt by their alma mater to cash in on the imagined Syracuse community. 

SU broke its fundraising record for the 2019 fiscal year, bringing in more than $163 million. Nearly 16,000 donors contributed. 

And yet SU advertised its “legendary” two day money-raising campaign like it was a game show. Donors could unlock challenges by giving, and they could meticulously track their contributions online. 

The problem is about more than SU spamming the Orange community with pleas to contribute to its vague fundraising goals. It’s about universities relentlessly campaigning for donations from students and recent alumni in a country where the current balance of outstanding student loans is about 1/14 of the nation’s total GDP. It’s about universities so out of touch with the reality of higher education that their administrations think it’s appropriate to fiercely lobby for pocket change from the students their institutions have bankrupted. 

But Boost the ‘Cuse isn’t framed like that. Instead it’s framed as the realization of a massive Syracuse family — a group of wildly diverse people uniting around a mutual admiration for their university. 

In an SU-sent email spotlighting the “Syracuse student experience,” a senior said she hopes “others will see that Boosting the ’Cuse is a way to honor all that Syracuse University gave them during their time on campus⁠ — and beyond.” 

“This is the place that gave people the start for their careers and provided great memories along the way,” she said. 

That storybook fondness of days spent in college isn’t the reality for most students, though. They likely made great memories and met some life-long friends and mentors. But their college experience probably came at a cost few find themselves in the position to easily or quickly overcome.

The Syracuse community, as Boost the ‘Cuse portrays it, is symbolic. It’s a socially constructed university that only exists in the imaginations of those lucky or privileged enough to visit. Hefty donations by faculty to the dean’s fund of the school that employs them, donations by coaches to the sporting programs they guide, $1 contributions from last year’s graduates — it’s about constructing an enviable SU. 

Alumni gifts, college ranking boards like the Princeton Review claim, can show how much students like their schools and how well they have done since graduating. The $1.69 million raised by thousands may just be a drop in the bucket in terms of SU’s $954.7 million operating expenses in the 2018 fiscal year — money they don’t really need — but it’s critical for manufacturing a perceived reality. 

America’s college graduates are struggling to find full-time jobs or working far below their level of education. The average student loan debt per person is $31,172. But what matters is that donation — a donation most students will likely never see the benefits of. 

Maybe they’ll ride one of the trolleys it helped fund or walk on one of the sidewalks it helped pave. Maybe they’ll enjoy state-of-the-art facilities it paid for. But maybe they won’t. Maybe they’re a graduate student struggling to make a living wage working at SU. Maybe they’re a freshman barely able to afford textbooks for their required introduction-level classes.

The Daily Orange Editorial Board wants Syracuse to do well. But it calls upon the university’s administrators to be more thoughtful about the way they emphatically solicit money from the people they claim they’re trying to help. 

The Daily Orange Editorial Board serves as the voice of the organization and aims to contribute the perspectives of students to discussions that concern Syracuse University and the greater Syracuse community. The editorial board’s stances are determined by a majority of its members. You can read more about the editorial board here. Are you interested in pitching a topic for the editorial board to discuss? Email opinion@dailyorange.com.