$21 million is a lot of money. It would take a person making $50,000 a year 420 years to make $21 million . With $21 million, you could buy 21 million cheeseburgers, or 7 Bugatti Veyrons (and still have $2.1 million left over) or enough gas to drive around the world roughly 5,500 times. You could wash and dry 10.5 million loads of laundry in any of Augie’s laundry rooms or print 350 million sheets of paper. $21 million would pay for your four-year Augustana education 116 times over. For $21 million, you could build your very own Center for Student Life.
That’s right, the newest addition to the Augustana campus cost the school $21 million. $21 million that could have been spent on scholarships, academic programs or putting air conditioning into Andreen and Westerlin have instead been spent on building the Center for Student Life.
The CSL is a magnificent addition to the campus, full of great places to hang out with friends or study alone. The cuisine is a veritable improvement over what used to be served in the College Center or the Westerlin Dining Room, yet I am still wondering if the new building is really worth $21 million.
It would have been much easier and cheaper to buy better equipment and ingredients for the existing dining rooms. With a few new ovens and a new coat of paint, the College Center could be almost as good as the CSL, without costing anyone any proverbial limbs.
The remaining funds could have then been better spent elsewhere. Not that anyone would have been buying seven of the world’s most expensive automobiles. The money spent on the CSL could have instead benefited the academic and extracurricular programs. The academic programs, as excellent as they are, can always be improved.
Ask any one of your professors what they would do with $21 million; I’m sure they would have no trouble coming up with a sizable list.
There are also plenty of underfunded clubs around campus that would love to have even a fraction of that $21 million at their disposal.
There are always improvements to be made in any building, regardless of it’s current state. Sure, having a nice place to eat is great, but there are plenty of more substantial improvements that could have been made with that $21million. Again, the CSL is a great place. I just do not think it was worth what was paid for it.