To the Editor:
Dartmouth College has long been a leader in labor practices and is right to pay strong wages and provide outstanding benefits to its employees. Indeed, fair treatment of employees is a duty of the College. Sara del Nido speaks righteously of this duty in her column "All Employees Created Equal" (May 24). Unfortunately Ms. del Nido neglects entirely Dartmouth's other duties to both its students and its donors.
The Financial Aid Office estimates the total cost of attending Dartmouth at nearly $44,000 for the coming year. This is a sum that a huge number of Ms. del Nido's fellow students struggle to pay with or without the help of financial aid. To the students who have to make many sacrifices to attend this school, Dartmouth has an obligation to spend our money wisely and frugally. Just as we should be outraged if we found out that the College were paying $3,000 for new computers that should cost $2,000, we should also be concerned if Dartmouth were to pay far above the market wage for its employees.
Ms. del Nido fails to recognize that the College has a limited budget and that for all practical purposes she is dealing with a zero-sum game. Paying even one graveyard shift employee an extra $6.40 per hour, 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year means that there is $12,800 less for academic programs, financial aid, or even some of Ms. del Nido's beloved non-alcoholic programming -- and that is only for a single employee.
I agree with Ms. del Nido's sentiments that Dartmouth should be a model employer, but it can do this without paying extraordinary premiums over market wages. Dartmouth cannot forget that its most essential duty is to educate its students.
