Pink Eyed Jim’s Blog

For ten years now, Rutgers University has been the site of frequent protesting over its exclusive beverage contract with Coca-Cola. In 1994 Rutgers University signed a $10 million “pouring rights” contract, giving Coke the exclusive beverage business of the entire university. Water can’t be offered at a university event unless it’s Desani.

This has all recently changed. So recently, in fact, that I’m the first to print this.

I work at one of the eating establishments on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus. An email was sent to the managers of all the food and beverage establishments on campus saying that, effective July, Rutgers will be a Pepsi school. That’s right, for the next ten years, anyone who attends Rutgers, sees a sporting event at Rutgers, or just happens to eat somewhere on a Rutgers campus, that person will have the choice between one Pepsi product and another Pepsi product.

I will only say that it is very sad to be living in the United States of America, supposedly the richest, smartest nation in the world and yet Universities have such a lack of funding that they need to seek exclusive beverage contracts with huge conglomerates just to raise some funds. It makes my education feel that much more genuine.