Registrar This

Yesterday I went to the office of the registrar to pick up official transcripts. Oh wait, let me rephrase that, I went to PAY FOR and pick up transcripts. Transcripts have always been free, but now they are $8 each. Sending the approximately one thousand applications out there to secure the one legal job for me would cost me an additional $8,000. I better get a job to pay for getting a job.

So I say "Registrar This!" [pointing to genitals].

Until I actually went to the office, it hadn't come together. The powers that be claim that transcripts really cost $8. It costs a bundle each time one presses the "print" button and puts the piece of paper in an large envelope, I understand. Sure, a university of 45,000 students cannot absorb the cost of one printer, a few boxes of paper and envelopes, and the salary of two employees. What is really happening?

They have a NEW office. All of the modern inconveniences: far away from campus but still on the seventh floor of a building that is more of a parking structure than a building, where the garage entrance says "lot X: permit parking only." Walking there yesterday, I realized many spots in the garage are actually regular metered parking. So the sign was a lie. Why don't they need the meter money that could be collected if people realized they could park there?

I am paying $8 more than nothing per transcript to support the move from a centrally located office to a far-flung, luxurious suite. This is a government's idea of capitalism: charge as much as possible for a monopoly operation with a captive market and let the entity "pay its way." Enjoy the surplus secretly.

But don't forget, they're not bathing in cash over there, despite the influx. They don't have change, not even $4. They actually had to wander around looking for cash in the other offices the last time someone paid in cash. I was nearly worshipped for paying with a check. I guess the employees are still adjusting to a cash economy.