“Elizabeth, come chat with us.” No thanks.

 I assume that most of the recipients of emails such as this react the same way I do: by pressing the delete button. There is nothing I hate more than people, and especially large institutions such as colleges, pretending they know me when they don’t. I understand that they’re trying to persuade me to “join the class of 2015!!!!!” at their university, but the calling me on my home phone and the emailing me once a week is excessive.

The emails aren’t even the worst part. I can handle an overload in my electronic inbox, but when my real mailbox starts to fill up with gigantic packets full of information about random universities and colleges, the environmentalist in me gets annoyed.

Colleges spend countless hours promoting how “green” their campuses are becoming, and yet they spend many thousands of dollars sending out postcards telling students such as myself to SAVE THE DATE and come visit them in New Mexico for a two hour presentation before making the 2000 mile return trip. Understandably, they are trying to recruit a diverse student body from all parts of the country; however, I assume they know that most residents of Virginia will not make the voyage. I always wonder why they waste so much paper when they know we won’t pay attention to it. Actually, even if someone did want to trek all that way, they would still end up throwing away the postcard. So regardless of outcome, all that paper wasted by the 4000+ colleges in the United States ends up in various trashcans scattered across the country.

Another thing that confuses me is where colleges are getting the money to print all of these glossy lookbooks and “formal” letters, and to pay for their postage. I assume they get it from alumni donations and other general university funds. What doesn’t make sense to me is that almost all colleges charge each student upwards of $15,000 a year, which goes towards the running of the university, but then they frivolously waste thousands of dollars on pointless fliers.

Why not save the future of America some money and put these large printing costs towards the cost of the facilities and professors? The money could instead be used towards these things, lowering tuition costs and making families and college students much happier.

It would also make all teenagers in the college-bound age bracket much more satisfied, because they would no longer have to spend their afternoons emptying hoards of college mail out of their mailboxes.