Featured, On Campus, On-Campus Developing - by Lily Q on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 18:59 - 4 Comments - 39 views

Financial Aid Flyer a Fake

It’s “a total fake,” NYU spokesman John Beckman said of the flyer encouraging NYU kids who can’t afford our ridiculous tuition to transfer to CUNY.

The flyer, convincingly titled “In and of the City Financial Aid Plan,” was chock full of a glorious Sexton “quote,” praise for CUNY’s “unshakable commitment to providing the very best possible education to all those who come to the University to realize their educational dreams” and a rather depressing tuition comparison between the two schools.

As for who made the flyer and why, Beckman’s not sure but calls it “another triumph for desktop publishing.”

In any case, props for realism, anonymous prankster. Judging by the exasperated tone of the financial aid rep I spoke with this morning, the calls are rolling in.

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4 Comments

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Farah Khimji
Dec 3, 2008 22:04

the flyer was a fake, but the sexton quote is definitely real. he’s expressed similar sentiment several times.

Claire Lewis
Dec 3, 2008 23:04

John Sexton said that quote verbatim at a University Senate meeting. I remember reading it in the minutes, and being like “Wow, glad to know how you feel about the poor kids…”

Financial Aid Flyer Hoax Courtesy of “Students Creating Radical Change” | NYU Local
Dec 4, 2008 17:02

[...] that “In and of the City Financial Aid” flyer that had tipsters and NYU Financial Aid all in a tizzy yesterday? Well, Students Creating [...]

Caroline G
Dec 26, 2008 12:58

@ Claire Lewis: Maybe I’m overreacting, but that kind of insensitivity is going to hurt the cause (”‘Wow, glad to know how you feel about the poor kids…’”). It is not just poor students who cannot afford NYU, but plenty of middle class students as well. Isolating this to a poor/rich issue is oversimplifying the problem and it is dehumanizing those you refer to as “poor.” I would like to point out that this is an issue for the entire student body, regardless if whether you can afford tuition or not, because fiscal diversity is an extremely important factor in creating well-rounded members of society, which, i hope, is something that most NYU students want from their education. With that said, I think that the students with the least financial means should under no circumstances be brushed aside.