Reader’s note: This story is satirical in nature and published in a spoof issue.

Despite a $75,000 hike in tuition last week, administrators are still contending that GW is the least-expensive university on the Eastern Seaboard.

Cost of attendance – including tuition, room and board, books, fees and travel expenses – is hovering around $125,000 per year. Over four years, the half-million-dollar expense would make the University more than three times costlier than the next highest in price, the Helen Keller Institute. This school’s price is due to its 4:1 ratio of full professors for every student, so each physically challenged pupil can get the specialized attention he deserves.

When asked why GW’s cost of attendance was about 325 percent higher than a college for deaf, blind and mute students, Propaganda Director Terry Schiavo refused to concede that the University is expensive.

“The George Washington University is a very, very affordable institution, and despite headlines in the media falsely saying otherwise, I think everyone would agree to this fact,” she said. “I don’t think it is a stretch to say that we are one of the cheapest institutions of higher education on this side of the Mississippi.”

Schiavo explained that GW’s unique fucked-tuition system means that the school’s price tag will remain the same for a student’s four undergraduate years. Although costs may be initially high upon entrance to the University, she said, they will be lower than “market-basket” schools toward the end of one’s college career.

“A little bit of patience and understanding is important with the fucked-tuition plan. The real savings aren’t apparent until the third or fourth year,” said Schiavo, who is of no relation to the deceased Floridian vegetable.

A Treekiller analysis, sponsored by this publication and conducted by the School of Business, recently proved that it’s statistically impossible for any American university to reach the gross levels of expense at GW. When confronted with this information, Schiavo declined to comment and referred The Treekiller to Executive Vice President and Cashman Louis “Scooter” Meoww, who then quickly referred comment back to Schiavo.

The report did identify two schools expected to become more expensive than GW in the next few years. The University of Baghdad and Basra Community College are set to have higher tuition than George Washington because of the astronomical costs of security per student, and even higher construction costs than anything in Foggy Bottom.

University President Supposedly Jobless Trachtenbye did not return several dozen phone calls placed to his office about this story, but was tracked down at Kinkead’s Seafood Restaurant eating lobster Friday afternoon.

“Yeah, so you found me at lunch, great. And you’ve apparently figured out what a ‘market-basket’ school is for our purposes. Marvelous,” playfully said the 68-year-old who is set to retire in July and has nothing to lose. “Now, your next question to me should be, ‘Mr. President, why the deceit?'”

“And my answer, of course,” he added mischievously, “would be, ‘no comment.'”