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| Giddyap!: The endowment increased 17% last year, thanks to my quite successful (but much misunderstood) wager on the Kentucky Derby. |
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Dear Prospective Student,
Listen: at Stutts we have a tradition, and that tradition is, “Don’t bother the President.” This method has worked for centuries, and we’re not about to stop now. So if you want the touchy-feely approach, the “oh, you’re paying a sick amount of cash to go here so I’m going to feign interest” thing, you better just move along.
So many years ago my father called me into his study. He said, "You're eighteen. Which is it, Vietnam, or the Presidency of Stutts?" Every September convinces me that I made the wrong choice. No man can defeat the ceaseless insurgency of youth. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
All of you look the same to me. You all come from the same Starbucks-and-NPR infested suburbs, have the same obnoxious status-worshipping parents, and think that doing well on standardized tests makes you some sort of ubermensch. You think you invented sex and swearing, and are the first person ever to notice hypocrisy. You’re hormone-sodden, incoherent, soft-noggined careerists. And you’re rude, too—get your hair out of your face, I’m talking to you.
Even if I wanted to care about you and your petty little dreams, I don’t have time. I have to fundraise round-the-clock, 365 days a year, just to keep the endowment growing fast enough. Tuition, mind-boggling though it may be, is actually an infintesimal part of the real cost of a Stutts education. (If I told you the amount, you'd pass out.) Also, there’s a lot of vandalism, especially on weekends. The endowment must double every six months to keep pace with the astronomical costs of keeping this institution open. It’s not like grade school, you know. We can’t simply ask everybody to show up with a box of tissues, some crayons and paste and call it a day.
For Stutts isn’t just daycare for the children of the rich and powerful. It’s also a profound financial commitment. Your parents commit to paying us an astronomical sum of money, in exchange for our best efforts at keeping you somewhat under control. Then, after four years the torch is passed: now you must give us astronomical sums of money.
I started this letter off by talking about tradition, but who the hell knows what I meant by it? What I'm trying to say is this: I'm already $50,000 behind for this hour, so please consider donating money to Stutts, whether you attend or not. Only 0.00001% of applicants are accepted, so that means that everybody needs to do their part, even all you rejects. Together we can protect the most important tradition of all: that Stutts University remains the best college in the world. (By which I mean the richest.)
