After the overwhelming popularity of the new Eagle Express accelerated tuition plan, the financial administration of UNT is ready to take affordable college education one step further. Yesterday, the school’s Board of Regents unveiled the “Eagle Enslaved” tuition track — which is exactly what it sounds like.
The details of the plan are simple: Students will receive 15 free hours of credit per semester in exchange for spending their summers, weekends, early mornings, late evenings, holidays, and essentially any other time they aren’t attending class working in the school’s new plantation-style farming community a few miles south of campus. Individuals utilizing the plan will have the opportunity to work outdoors, gaining valuable hands-on agricultural experience.
Students will have to wait until the beginning of next semester to give the plan a try, but the intense nature of the slavery-based tuition payment structure has already attracted controversy.
“I’m willing to work two humiliating minimum-wage jobs and burden myself with a lifetime of crippling debt to pay for classes,” said freshman psychology major Diane Rinkle, “But actual slavery makes me uncomfortable, for some reason. Toiling in the fields? Shit, do you know how hot it gets out there?”
Despite criticism, UNT Student Affairs spokesperson Gene Matlock said that despite its “snappy title,” the new tuition plan technically does not constitute full enslavement, since students using the program are compensated for their labor in the form of credit hours.
“History buffs will love this option, since it offers students the opportunity to experience our nation’s long history of chattel slavery and indentured servitude firsthand,” he said. “That sweat pouring down your brow? Son, that’s the American dream you’re soaking in.”
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