How many drinks can you buy for the same price as being a PSU student?

Breaking it down in terms we all understand

You probably have some idea of what you pay to go to Penn State in good old American dollars, but have you ever thought about how many potential drinks you could have bought if you didn’t have things like tuition to pay for?

It’s no secret that the cost of college is outrageously expensive, especially at a school like Penn State. We pay crazy amounts of money to be able to call these four years the best of our lives. And they really better be because those loans aren’t going away any time soon.

Here is a breakdown of the expenses of being a Nittany Lion in terms of drinks from downtown.

Tuition = 9,000 Phyrst trash cans

If you’re an in-state student, you pay around $33,130 per year and if you live out of state it’s around $47,612. Both are a serious blow, but why even pay tuition when you could be buying $5 trashcans from The Phyrst? If you’re from PA that’s 6,626 trash cans and if you’re from somewhere else it’s a whopping 9,522. That’s a more than generous lifetime supply of the strange purple-ish concoction.

Textbooks = 66 long islands

Each semester our bank accounts are drained from the amount of textbooks, access codes and lab manuals required for each one of our classes. If you spend about $200 a semester on books, that converts to 66.6 $3 long islands. 666? Coincidence? I think not.

Season football tickets = 35 Gaff pitchers

Buying season tickets for the Nittany Lion football season isn’t a necessity, but if you want to true Penn State experience, you pretty much have to get them. This is one of the only times that waking up at 7am to drop $215 is actually worth it. However, instead of dropping that cash on football tickets, you could go to the Gaff for a $6 liquor pitcher for you and 34 of your closest friends.

Gym membership = 18 full priced Café teas

In case you didn’t already know, Penn State is the only Big Ten school that requires students to buy an additional gym pass on top of the “student activities” fee—whatever that is anyway. Each semester a membership costs $60, which is almost nine Café teas a semester when they are $6.75 each. It might actually be worth sacrificing your beach bod to make participating in 55 Days of Café a little more manageable.

Groceries/eating out = 60 Monkey Boys

While you’re here, you definitely have to eat and between grocery shopping, eating at the ever so pricey HUB and getting that downtown drunk food, you probably spend at least $300 a month on food alone. Almost every night of the week, Saloon has $5 Monkey Boys, and just think, you could either eat, or get 60 entire pitchers of Bong Water. Which might kind of be a fair trade—at least they come with a snack of maraschino cherries.

In reality, no one could (hopefully) ever drink this much, but it definitely helps put into perspective how much money we actually spend on school before we even step foot in a bar. But sorry, it won’t stop us from blowing what’s left in our bank account on pitchers of liquor and beer.

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