Northeastern students have become the scape goat for all the irresponsible behavior occuring in our city (I say “our” although we are constantly reminded that it is anything but ours). This is not a conclusion I arrived at by making assumptions. I was told directly by an officer of the West Roxbury District Court that it was “you and your drunken friends who are ruining our neighborhoods.” While biting my tongue and showing the respect to the court clerk who felt it was apparently not necessary to show any to my roommate and I, I thanked him for his beligerantly patronizing remarks, and walked out of the conference room. I was no longer focusing on the keeper of disorderly house charges that I had just faced, but rather the harsh, false accusations that were just flung at me by a court official. So in response to those who insist us college students are ruining your neighborhoods, I have provided some research for you. You may have found, if you had bothered to broaden your horizons the least bit, that it is the students of the thirty four local colleges and universities (believe it or not, their are other schools other than Northeastern, and some of them are even in the Mission Hill area) that pump over $850 million a year into the Boston economy through food, entertainment, and transportation services, according to an article in Tuft’s University E-news (enews.tufts.edu/stories/031103EconomicReport.htm). Also, eight of the research universities, three of whom are of the top ten employers of Boston, have a “combined 2002 payroll totaled more than $2.5 billion. Approximately $2.2 billion was paid to residents of the Boston metropolitan area. That personal income, an average of $51, 000 per employee, in turn, became revenue for state and local tax collectors of income tax, property tax, excise tax, and other taxes, and revenue for local businesses. Massachusett’s annual income revenue from university employees is estimated at more than $115 million”, as stated in The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts (AICUM)”Engines of Economic Growth” (www.mascolleges.org/Economic/pdf/summary_report.pdf). Where do the universities get the revenue to pay their employees? The ridiculously high tuitions that students and their families are willing to fork over in exchange for a supposed liberal education. So to the next neighbor who complains about the rotten Northeastern students, I suggest this: apologize for the possible late night parties (which I agree are not helping our image in the least bit), but make sure to make the point that what would their neighborhoods be without our money-their sidewalks, roads, and streetlighting. Or even better yet, if a police officer attempts to trample your constitutional rights and enter and search a house with out probable cause, remind him/her who is helping pay their salary. Because, in most cases, it’s you.