It’s that time of year when many seniors look to their bank accounts in hopes of surviving until they land that yet unknown job in a few months. The organized seniors (an oxymoron) made enough of a budget to include room, board, travel and booze, but they may not have included caps and gowns or the more threatening money guzzler: class rings.
The university has standardized rings this year. The designs of Testudo and McKeldin Mall please my scrupulous eye, but I’m still not buying the bling. I find this particular class ring to be unnecessarily expensive. As the sole provider for rings on the campus, Balfour has listed the minimum cost at $400 with custom options ranging to $1,000. Rival company Jostens has prices that approach $300 as a minimum. Balfour’s prices are relatively competitive and do not monopolize the class ring industry, as students can still shop around for cheaper jewelry off the campus. If students wish to be a part of the fledgling tradition of Balfour’s agreeably generic design, though, a minimum of $400 is required.
The pricing raises some questions for Alden Gross, the Student Government Association vice president of finance and a Senior Council member, who says a discounted price is normal for bulk purchases.
“I’m glad the involved groups have come up with a new tradition here at Maryland,” he said. “I just think it’s typical business practice to offer a price cut when so many of essentially the same ring are being sold and in a location where [Balfour] is the sole provider.”
Balfour expects to sell about approximately 600 rings this year. Assuming students pick a relatively cheap ring at $500, Balfour will bring in revenue of $300,000 a year from this university alone. This leads me to think if students are willing to spend this much for a ring, they should never have any problem raising tens of thousands of dollars for a class gift.
Balfour’s estimate of selling 600 rings means fewer than one in 10 graduating seniors will purchase a college class ring each year. Student senator and senior Mike Lin said, “I don’t care about that stuff. I don’t wear jewelry.”
In the interest of good reporting, I have tried in vain to speak with a person who wishes to purchase a class ring to commemorate his or her experience here at the university. Having found none, it makes me wonder about the purpose of owning a class ring. It is not proof of graduation, like a diploma. Class rings can be earned with the accumulation of 75 credits, so even a dropout junior can get one. Rings are a type of jewelry, to state the obvious, and can be bought elsewhere in greater varieties to please connoisseurs of shiny objects. None of these possibilities make it matter that the ring comes from the university.
School pride comes up as one of the likely reasons to purchase this specific ring and to take part in the upstart tradition. Class rings are a tangible link to memories of life in and around College Park, albeit in an easily lost cubic inch of hard elements. Students pay thousands for the hopeful recollection of their education, so it doesn’t take a king of bling to suppose 600 or so students will pay a few hundred dollars to have an added reminder of what it meant to be a Terp.
I am not a fan of rings in general, but I imagine others would be with me in buying the ring if it cost just a few bucks. For example, almost 10,000 “Fear the Turtle” bracelets have been sold as of this week at $2 each. This is evidence enough that class rings would make a much better impression if the tradition didn’t carry such a heavy pricetag. I congratulate past and present students for their diligence in making a class ring shared by all, but I regret to inform them I will not be shelling out the green.
Joe Dowgiallo is a senior English major. He can be reached at jdowg@umd.edu
