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COLUMN: CMU, college, and corporations: A bureaucrat's paradise

(09/21/11 4:00pm)

Imagine this: You're on the phone with the Student Service Court and then transferred to Accounts Receivable. Accounts Receivable pitches you back to the Service Court and you go back and forth hearing hollow bureaucratic rhetoric until your ears gush blood. Before I came to college, I thought the above parable to be a hyperbole; a satirical exaggeration of the complications of big business and government. Then I came here and experienced it for myself - over and over again. The different layers of bureaucracy are like the seven levels of hell. Each level down — or in bureaucracy's case, up — is more flooded with paperwork and hurdles for the simplest things. An example: I had the amount reduced for my student loans and was then told I didn't have to pay my bill until Oct. 1. I waited for my statement to update so I knew how much I owed, which it did, Sept. 6, along with $130 in late fees. When I called billing and explained the situation, I was transferred back and forth between departments before finally being told I should have known to pay the first part of my bill I owed and that there was nothing anyone could do. Granted, the woman I talked to from the Student Service Court was very nice, but no amount of nice words can heal my wounds from hemorrhaging $130 that I'll get nothing for and will never see again. Tell me to cry you a river and I will. $130 is a lot of money for me. That's about a third of a credit hour. The point of all this? It shouldn't feel like I'm talking to a faceless corporation when I have dealings with this school, but that's the way it is. It's everywhere, of course, in every college. I've had similar experiences with community college. The saying about big colleges like U of M and MSU, that students "are just a number" seems to hold true about CMU as well. That normally would be fine, considering CMU really is a big college. What makes it not fine is how CMU markets itself as a college where that kind of thing doesn't go on. CMU, you're worse than a college that doesn't care about its students. You're a college that doesn't care about its students and lies about it under oath. You're a hypocrite. As the old cliche goes "actions speak louder than words," and through the vague guidelines, cost increases, paperwork hurdles and refusals to budge on honest appeals, the vibe I've gotten is that my college cares more about my money than my success or happiness. And that's a shame.

https://www.cm-life.com/article/2011/09/cmu-college-and-corporations-a-bureaucrats-paradise