When his latest tuition bill arrived, Brian Brandenburg was out of money. He had no checks, no credit cards, and no cash. He tried appealing to his parents, but to no avail. So he did the only thing he could think of: he paid using his SUpercard.
Like most students, Brandenberg had put WAY too much money on his SUpercard to begin with. In mid-April of 2009, when his bill arrived, he had $5,617.89 remaining, and he knew that the end of the semester would take his leftover money with it. After contemplating whether or not he could stomach eating $5,617.89-worth of Burger King, Sbarro and Taco Bell, Brandenberg decided to do the responsible thing: he ate $1,019.23-worth of Burger King, Sbarro and Taco Bell. And THEN he used the rest on tuition.
“A boy’s gotta eat, right?” asked Brandenberg. A boy’s gotta eat indeed.
So after gorging himself, Brandenberg approached Steele Hall, his stomach full, his arteries sending out countless numbers of S.O.S. signals, his feet begrudging his new weight. Confidently, Brandenberg approached the Registrar’s Office, informed the secretary that he had come to pay his tuition, and then proceeded to hand her his SU ID.
“I didn’t know what to do,” says Eileen Conrad. “No one has ever tried that before. But I figured, “What the hell?’ So I took the ID, swiped it, and sure enough, it cleared.”
“I even had some left over,” says Brandenberg, “about five hundred bucks. And since it won’t carry over to next year, I’m going to have to spend it before the year ends. I’ll probably just buy some SU sweatshirts or something useful.”
Note: Brandenberg was hospitalized later that month from a heart attack after consuming $497.34-worth of Burger King, Sbarro and Taco Bell.
