Ever heard of the NYU Torch Club? Neither had we, until we found it on Yelp. Sitting at 18 Waverly Place, it looks like what you’d expect to see in the dining room of a country club. It’s a pretty stark contrast to most of NYU’s other buildings. It actually looks cozy, complete with arm chairs and a portrait of NYU founding father Albert Gallatin hanging above a fire place. Indeed, all of the furnishings seem typical of some lounge at an Ivy league school, where professors in tweed blazers talk about pre-Socratic philosophy. So what is this place and what is it doing at our school?

According to NYU, the Torch Club is a facility that exclusively serves faculty, staff, and alumni. However, as many Yelp reviewers have pointed out, no one really checks to assure that you are in any way affiliated with the university. The only consequence seems to be the addition of sales tax if paid by a non-NYU account.

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Hear ye, hear ye, various CAS and Gallatin students. You may be paying thousands upon thousands of dollars for your education, but you know that crippling debt you will find yourself in upon graduation, when you are left with only a philosophy degree (and certainly not your dignity)? You may not find yourself living with your parents, jobless and alone! An article published yesterday by USA Today showed the results of a study that stated students with good critical thinking and writing skills, i.e. the hopeful result of a Liberal Arts education, were more likely to be better off financially.

The study, conducted by the Social Science Research Council, consisted of a standardized test done to measure how students “think, reason, and write.” Those who did well on the test, called the “Collegiate Learning Assessment” were more likely to do well in life. High-scorers were three times less likely to be unemployed than low scorers, as well as half as likely to be living with their parents and in far less credit card debt.

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