This article is entirely satire. All information and interviews below are fictional and for entertainment purposes only. 

After Tulane University announced that current freshmen will live on campus for their junior year, a group of 200 Uptown New Orleans landlords created a “GougeFundMe” fund on GoFundMe.com. They have already amassed $420,000 from the Tulane community.

“This is a really rough time for landlords in New Orleans,” landlord Jim Miser said. “Yes, we have been gouging students for decades. Yes, that has given us an unseemly amount of money. But what, you think we’re saving it?”

Tulane is moving towards a four-year living requirement. According to spokesperson Mickey House, the move is for the wellbeing of students. 

“Okay, we just really needed the extra money to get another pretty crane,” House said. “This one’s going to be green.”

Miser owns 13 different houses in the Tulane area. His average monthly rent is based on a complex mathematical equation developed by the founders of the Doubles to Dorms movement.

“The landlord rent algorithm is quite complicated,” math professor Hugh Jass said, “and very specific to Tulane students. You take the student’s age and multiply it by their parents’ salary, subtract their rising sign and divide that by the alpha-numerology of their middle name. Oh, and you add their Long Island zip code.” 

Landlord Robin Banks is leading the “GougeFundMe” movement. “We landlords need to prepare for the inevitable future of doom when two-year leases students sign freshman year cannot trap unknowing 18-year-olds into rooming with sociopaths they barely know out of fear of lack of housing,” Banks said. 

Though juniors will begin to live on campus starting in the fall of 2025, landlords are preparing for disaster now.

“Empty houses will become refuges for down-on-their-luck landlords,” Miser said. “I’m already turning one of my properties into a shelter for 2025. I’ve added an indoor jacuzzi, fifty cans of peaches, a space heater in every room, three emotional support dogs, one emotional support pig, a juicer, a Wii, a Mukbang-designated kitchen, a sound bath room and a pilates station. The tenants don’t seem to mind. If they do, there is nowhere else for them to go.”

The “GougeFundMe” is gaining national traction among college-student landlords. Landlord groups at colleges across the country, including University of Miami and University of Michigan, have started similar GoFundMe’s as they lose potential clients. These GoFundMe’s include “GoFundMyChildsEducationAtThisSchool,” “GoFreeMeFromWorkingPastFifty,” “GoToAnotherSchoolFundMe,” “GoFu**Urself” and more.