College students are society’s most pampered demographic. Four years of pot smoking, three-ways, sleeping late, skipping classes, and more money than they know what to do with…good times.
What’s that? You’re a college student and you’re not rolling in the dough? Then you must not live in Pittsburgh, PA, where the college students are so fat that on top of paying for rent, food, tuition, books, drugs, car, entertainment, Che Guevara t-shirts and the occasional trip home, they can also afford to pay a new tax.
Now, before you get all bent out of shape about another student entitlement program going to these fat cat radical left-wing college types, know this: the tax won’t go to enrich students or even to provide any needed service for them, but rather to pay pensions for retired city employees who won’t die already.
I know, right? Stupid old people and their entitlements. As if bountiful Social Security payments, a free ride on health insurance from Medicare and AARP discounts just for being old aren’t enough for these selfish seniors, now they want the city of Pittsburgh to fork out the pensions they paid into for 40-odd years or whatever.
This has nothing to do, before you ask, with the fact that most students don’t vote in their college towns, or the fact that they are not organized as a political constituency, like those wonderful folks who hate gay people. Or old people.
This is not about a gutless mayor and city council pitting one powerless group against a larger and very powerful group who have nothing better to do in their old age than attend public meetings and, you know, vote in every goddamn election ever held. No, this is about what’s fair and what’s right.
So what if students already pay taxes on the above-mentioned goods and services (except drugs, probably)? So what if local universities contribute to the community both financially and in ways immeasurable that enhance the city’s quality of life?
Doesn’t matter. If college students don’t have the good sense, not to mention all the free time they have when not attending class or working full-time, to organize themselves against a city looking to exploit yet another powerless group who can’t fight back, then they deserve to pay through the nose. These pampered, spoiled brats have had a free ride for far too long. It’s about time for them to start paying their own way. Or the pensions of seniors.



Ha, ha! Only upper-class white people are supposed to go to ‘college’! That’s why textbooks typeset in India and printed in China cost $150. And are only valid for one year before a new edition comes out.
For the others there is always the military where you will learn where you place in the social order really is.
I heard about this on the radio…NPR, I think. My jaw DROPPED. As a parent, my kids will not be looking at any schools in Pittsburgh. That is an absolute OUTRAGE. I get that the students add to the weight on police and whatever else. However, these colleges traditionally add FAR AND AWAY more than they take in the form of business, jobs, etc. OUTRAGEOUS!