I graduated from Northwestern four weeks ago, on Friday, June 19. For the previous four years, I threw tens of thousands of dollars at the school (well, rather, at the companies foolish enough to loan me that kind of dough). But, once they handed me the diploma – after I returned the rented purple gown that cost me $50 for the privilege of sweating under nylon in the relentless summer heat – I went from student to alumni, a.k.a. potential donor.

I haven’t received the call yet. The one that is bound to come from a Phonathon operator – a freshman who doesn’t yet realize that there are better jobs to be had on campus or the unpaid summer intern who needs to pay the bills somehow – looking for my donation. But I know it is coming. Slightly less obnoxious are the e-mails, which have already started. I promptly deleted every one of the two dozen or so messages I received about the senior class gift. That’s 20 bucks and nine cents that I can put towards paying Evanston’s exorbitant rent.

Northwestern is sitting on a stack of money – it isn’t tuition-driven in the same way that neighboring colleges and universities are (Columbia, DePaul, Roosevelt) – and alumni donations are most important not because of what they end up funding but because of how they help to increase our rank; alumni giving is an important measure for U.S. News & World Report, the annual list to end all other lists of how we stack up against the other wannabe Ivys.

This isn’t new to me. I graduated from a boarding school in the suburbs of Illinois before enrolling at NU. The school, which operates on a 16-plus million dollar budget but only hosts 600 or so students, relies heavily on donations. And, even in that case – the opposite of Northwestern’s situation – I am reluctant to give. Not because I don’t appreciate the education I received – I do – but because I am a 22-year-old still trying to find a decent job in a tough economy. (Enough on that subject.) Yes, I know that every little bit counts; a dollar here and a dollar there. But I’d rather spend my dollars on lunch. Four years out now, my high school has spent many dollars that could have gone elsewhere just on the postage to mail me their quarterly pleas.

I know that Northwestern doesn’t acurately represent the economic diversity in the country (read: many, if not most, students here are very well off), but hit up the parents for donations at least until we’re out of college and away from campus. Let me mom shred and toss your letter so that I don’t have to.

My lease isn’t up until the end of August and I, like many others, am here in town for the summer. I don’t feel totally separated from this place yet. Or, I didn’t until earlier this week. Before an important job interview downtown, I went to one of the Medill buildings hoping to capitalize one last time on my free printing privileges. But, sadly, my login had already been deleted, wiped from the NU servers. I trudged to the University Library instead where I had to sign in as an outside visitor and fight for a free computer in the Reference section. The computers in the main section, the InfoCommons, you see, are for current students. This means that half of them were being used by small, wire-haired, 5 o’clock ‘stache-sporting kids whose parents are shelling out lots of money to send them away to what are essentially NU-based camps. And they couldn’t have me in one of the free seats should another troupe of them arrive. Seated, in Reference, next to an old man looking up local retail jobs in the area and listening to a gold Walkman (they still make them; I saw one at Target the other day), I was ready to print what I needed. “I need a card to print,” I said to the guy working the information desk. “Oh, you have to buy one of those.” Pause. “They’re only like 75 cents, though.” Two hundred thousand dollars, apparently, doesn’t cover the cost of the reusable plastic card. “Seventy five cents too much,” I said, and walked away.