Dear Alma Mater,

Wow. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that you’ve finished up your current fund-raising drive. And months ahead of schedule, too—way to go! I would be more excited if I didn’t suspect you were already cooking up a clever name for your next donation drive, but hey—it’s still nice that my inbox will get a short reprieve from your attempts to guilt me into handing over my checkbook.

And it’s good to know that the editorials will die down for a while—you know, the ones about how you’re raising all these zillions of dollars to quietly beef up your brand-spanking-new School of Engineering rather than tending to any of the traditional (and traditionally-underfunded) departments, or, you know, to the scholarship fund (pesky students!). At any rate: nice work!

However! You are welcome to keep your postcards thanking me for donating. Another one appeared in my mailbox today, rather inexplicably, seeing as I’m not what you’d call a Big Donor. Or a donor at all. Now, see, this is partly because I just don’t have any change to spare. But if I did, I’m thinking I might not choose to send it to a school that, barring a major policy change, won’t even consider my kids’ applications when they’re ready to apply a decade from now—a school whose official policy says that the education it provided doesn’t adequately prepare me to teach my kids their times tables.

If I were really clever, I might find some way to donate huge amounts in an attempt to convince you to rethink your admissions policy. You know, the one often described as “hostile to homeschoolers.” The one that causes the University to regularly appear on annual “least homeschool-friendly” lists. But I’m not going to do that. See, I love you—I think you’re a great school. I’m just not willing to try to bribe you into loving me back.

Yours,

A Whiny Alumnus