See-Dub: A Little Lattetudinarianism, Please
Since P-dawg hasn’t brought out the cane yet, I’m gonna sneak in one more post. It’s about law school, so it’s possibly of interest to some folks out there. More precisely, it’s about a nanny-state impulse at the University of Seattle, hectoring people about a harmless pastime: drinking coffee. Apparently the career counselors are concerned by the habits of many students to spend $3 a day on Starbucks Lattes. That adds up to, well, 365 X $3 X3 years of law school= $3285 over the course of the J.D. Since most students borrow their tuition money, the schools are concerned that students are racking up their loans on coffee.
In decades past, lenders chided college students for excessive spending of borrowed money on pizza and cigarettes, but the staggering ubiquity of Starbucks appears to have narrowed the nagging to foamy espresso drinks.
Considering the number of lawyers I know who graduated law school with pickled livers and a raging dependency on demon drink (or worse), I think the law school should be encouraging this habit. You want your students wide awake and studying in a Starbucks or Peet’s, sipping some foofy little coffee concoction, not guzzling rum and stuffing their loan checks straight into Tawanda’s cleavage at the Spearmint Rhino.
If it’s such a problem, why doesn’t the University of Seattle just put in their own coffee shop that provides a nice study environment and subsidized mocha half-caf hazelnut Frappacinos? If they were really concerned about student debt, there are probably some serious chunks of that $115k average law school debt figure they could cut. Like for instance the salary of the underworked dude who goes around worrying about how much coffee their students are chugging.
“If it’s such a problem, why doesn’t the University of Seattle just put in their own coffee shop that provides a nice study environment and subsidized mocha half-caf hazelnut Frappacinos?”
Wouldn’t the subsidies come from tuition, which is paid by the students?
actus (3be069) — 6/18/2005 @ 3:12 pmDon’t know about Washington, but here in Virginia, at least at the state universities, a great chunk of the subsidies comes from us taxpayers. Admittedly more so for the in-state undergrads but I’m sure that we fund at least some portion of the post-grad programs also.
Harry Arthur (b318a5) — 6/18/2005 @ 4:17 pmIf the answer to expensive student life is to subsidize student life, then i’m all for it.
actus (3be069) — 6/18/2005 @ 5:06 pmStrippers are for the MBA students.
I-bankers know how to party. Lawyers’ idea of a party is a bottle of Jim Bean.
Angry Clam (f05866) — 6/18/2005 @ 5:19 pmHey P2, not sure if the trackback worked — sorry for the redundancy if so:
http://www.charmaineyoest.com/archives/culture/starbucks_boycott/index.html
Real reasons to boycott Starbucks instead of high cost.
Charmaine Yoest, Ph.D. (6d3535) — 6/18/2005 @ 6:51 pmP-Dawg is giving you tomorrow as well. Monday is a clean start. Nothing but my crap.
Patterico (756436) — 6/18/2005 @ 9:23 pmP-Dawg, Thanks, boss.
Charmaine–good stuff. No Gallo wine (including E&J cooking brandy), either, unless you love Nancy Pelosi as much as they do.
Subsidies- Starbucks has to make a profit and pay a huge overhead. A student coffee shop could be either priced as a non-profit enterprise–ie, just pays for itself, or it could return all profits into the schools debt-forgiveness program that will enable law students to go work as prosecutors or in Fair Trade Coffee NGO’s.
Clam–I think that’s lawyers’ idea of an evening alone. A party is two bottles.
See Dubya (1440fc) — 6/18/2005 @ 10:14 pm[…] Coffee makes people uptight. I said as much here last June, and since then more evidence has come in that Starbucks makes people grumpy. Even really nice people. […]
Patterico’s Pontifications » More Lattetudarianism Needed (421107) — 4/7/2006 @ 9:32 pm