On Friday night, Hall Council and Student Government collaborated to host the end-of-semester Roaring Twenties Ball. The evening included a meal, a DJ, the space and so on, and tickets were provided at no cost.

Organizers gave tickets to the first 120 students to sign up, but only 80 students showed. A full third of students who signed up simply didn’t go, at an estimated 200 AED per person already paid by the university, said sophomore and Hall Council Director of Communications Megan Vincent. Needless to say, there was a serious amount of money wasted on empty seats.

This is no new issue at our university. An article earlier in the year summarized the frustrations of event organizers who constantly had to deal with students RSVP-ing but not showing up to events. But it is something else altogether when tickets are purchased on behalf of students for events.

Many of those students have their excuses for not going: too much work, too tired, etc. Yet how many of those students would have pulled those same excuses if they had to pay for their tickets themselves?

Ultimately, it comes down to a question of respect. When we, as students, do not show up to an event that we have signed up to, we are disrespecting those who have put in their time and efforts to organize the event, we are disrespecting the university who put up the money to host the event and, particularly in cases like this, we are disrespecting those who were not able to get tickets that we didn’t use.

Hall Council and Student Government will directly reach out to those students involved. However, I believe that this instance is symptomatic of a larger problem of entitlement at this university.

Since freshman year, we have been bombarded with seemingly free things, which has been wonderful in so many ways. But it seems that it has also come at a certain cost: we no longer value that which we do not pay for.

Certain departments, including Athletics, have implemented strategies to hold students accountable, including co-pays and deposits. Attendance has improved for those events. Situations like Friday night therefore raise the question: Do we really have to introduce economic disincentives for every event for students to take commitment seriously?

Maybe. Or maybe if we remembered and respected more those who are footing the bill, we might think harder about our responsibilities to them and show the same commitment to events that organizers do.

Editors note: Tom Taylor was neither at the event nor involved in organizing it in any way.