NEW YORK CITY, NY - The world of elite education is no stranger to controversy or ideology, but one institution may have gone too far; Columbia Business School has halted all free coffee for students and faculty effective immediately in an effort to rid its halls of the ‘specter of Communism.’ Incoming class president, Ethan T. Schmidt, has championed the move as part of a three-pronged approach to purge anti-Capitalist agitators from CBS.
“This ‘sharing’ economy has gone too far,” wrote President-elect Schmidt in a school-wide announcement, “we must return to the traditional values of self-interested exchange of good and services. Effective immediately, the coffee [in the student lounge] will be sold at market price. If you want coffee for your own personal consumption, then you are more than welcome to buy it yourself, but the rest of us aren’t going to support freeloaders. The same goes for Bloomberg terminal access – if you currently don’t have enough capital to invest in a personal subscription, sell your labor for wages until you do.”
The plan outlined in what some recipients called a “rambling, incoherent diatribe,” enacts policies to collect and sell in the cafeteria all uneaten food provided by the university for recruiting and social events, replacing the unofficial of promoting free leftover food on the school-wide #scavengers Slack channel. President-elect Schmidt vowed to “purge the hotbed of liberalism” throughout the school, launching a formal investigation into the school musical-comedy troupe, CBS Follies, for “Un-American and unfunny activities” that breed Communist thought.
The student response to this extreme policy shift has been subdued yet supportive. “I like free stuff as much as the next guy,” says aspiring Cynthia Hayden, “but, as patriots, it is only fair that we pay for the resources we consume. And if this is what it takes to break the tie for [U.S. News ranking] #6, then I’m all for it.”