This Lecture Brought to You by McDonald’s

Last year, I walked in to one of my classes about five minutes before class, got settled in, and waited for the professor to call the class to order and start teaching. He did the former, but he didn’t start the latter right away.

Instead, a representative from Kaplan—the standardized test corporation­—was allowed to give a brief presentation about how awesome the Kaplan classes are (I think it was for the LSATs) and, while he did that, the TAs handed out Kaplan fliers.

Apparently, this wasn’t an isolated incident either. A number of people I’ve talked to about this—as well as a reader who e-mailed us about this growing problem—have also experienced this invasion of our classrooms. You see, what I found eminently frustrating about this was not only that I was essentially part of a captive audience and that I had to deal with seeing even more advertising (I get more than enough on the internet and living in New York, thanks) the money that I paid to take that class was being used to foist a product upon me.

But what was even more outrageous was the use of University employees (the TAs) to participate in the advertising. When I came to Columbia, I never expected the lifetime of debt to which I acquiesced to pay for the distribution of what I am sure the University administration would describe as “vital educational materials” or some nonsense. In all fairness to the TAs, however, I am sure they never expected to be the pack mules of Kaplan when they took the job. It probably wasn’t even in the job description.

While the University administration might try to justify this obscenely obnoxious practice with the claim that they’re trying to keep the University above water by trying to raise more money, that claim is just laughable (for example, it’s been going on since before the economic crisis). While we’re being forced to pay to watch advertising from corporations such as Kaplan and Red Bull (as our reader says), Spectator points out that the athletics department is still raking in millions and millions of dollars.

Keeping dorms open on the weekend (Wallach is now closed Friday through Sunday. Apparently it was also too costly to inform students about the change beforehand) or our classrooms free from annoying advertisements? Apparently that’s just a luxury. But God forbid that we should cut our athletics spending or PrezBo’s ridiculous salary.

The author is a Columbia College sophomore. He is the co-editor of the Commentariat, the official blog of Spectator Opinion.