As you may have already heard, Northwestern University School of Law just renamed itself in honor of J.B. Pritzker, who donated $100 million to the school. From a college student's perspective, that sounds like a fake amount of money. But how much is $100 million worth, really? NBN investigates.
One School of Law
As today's purchase/donation demonstrates, $100 million is equivalent to the naming rights to exactly one law school. Out of the top 14 law schools nationwide (yes, the cutoff for the most elite law schools is number 14; yes, law school rankings are weird), Northwestern Pritzker School of Law is now the only one with a proper name. The rest of these schools will just have to suffer without the allure of a distinctive brand. Who could ever remember a name like Harvard Law?
15 Scott Walker presidential primary campaigns
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suffered an ignoble defeat this year when he dropped out of the GOP presidential primary after a scant 70 days in the race. In that time, he managed to spend $6,393,957 on his campaign; a little over $90,000 a day. This prodigious spending has been named by most in the media as the reason behind Walker's surprisingly quick collapse. With $100 million, Scotty Walks could have run the same campaign 15 times over. More intriguingly, 15 more candidates could have run. Alas, we are unlikely to ever see a debate featuring 31 other candidates and one Donald Trump.
1,259 Corvettes
The 2016 Corvette Z06 has a manufacturer suggested retail price of $79,400, or about a year and a half of tuition at Northwestern. For the price of the Northwestern School of Law's name, you could get over 1,200 of them. To be honest, though, this is mostly an excuse to talk about the love that Joe Biden, Vice President and 2016 un-candidate, has for these cars. Biden on the 2015 Z06, for instance: "You tach that sucker up to six grand and this comes out of the hole like a bullet, man."
This is the dream of all humankind: To someday have someone look at us the same way Biden looks at Corvettes.
1,000,000 children fed on school weekends
This year, Northwestern University Dance Marathon has chosen Blessings in a Backpack as its charity. The organization provides weekend meals for school children whose weekday meals are provided through federal programs, ensuring that they have enough to eat on weekends. Their website estimates that it takes roughly $80-$100 to feed a child on weekends during a 38-week school year. So, hey, if you happen to know someone with a spare 100 mil hanging around, NUDM has a proposition for you.
183,374,083 cans of Busch Light or 73,439,412 Taco Bell tacos
To truly put this figure in context for college students, we turn to the old stand-bys: cheap beer and meat-like edible substances. A cube of Busch Light and a dozen Taco Bell tacos come out to about the same price in Cook County: Taco Bell's online checkout system estimates that the box of tacos should be $16.34, while Binny's puts the thirty-pack of Busch at $16.36. Some people might say that once you've got $100 million, you can start to think about maybe treating yourself a little better, perhaps upgrading to Chipotle and Heineken. Those people are unfrugal and untrustworthy, and you should not listen to them.