St. Augustine’s College, in Raleigh, N.C., has fined two students $150 each for failing to wake up at 2 a.m. one night last month, when their dormitory’s fire alarm went off as part of a drill. According to The News and Observer, a local newspaper, it took a fireman’s knock on their door to rouse them, and waiting at the building’s entrance were college officials who took down their names. Letters soon followed, informing them of the penalty.
The students complained to the newspaper that the college seeks to bolster its revenue with a “fee-students-to-death culture” that metes out $1 fines for misplaced room keys and $5 communal penalties for unflushed toilets. A college spokeswoman denied those complaints, asserting that the key and toilet fines were no longer being collected. She also said that fire-alarm fines are assessed only when officials have to search an evacuated building for students thought to be missing.
