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The Economics of Everyday Things

48. College Fraternities

The Economics of Everyday Things

Freakonomics Network

Business

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2024

⏱️ 19 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A fraternity’s budget includes broken windows, liability insurance, chili dog breakfasts, and the occasional $40,000 DJ. Zachary Crockett crashes the party.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

On the outskirts of the University of Illinois

0:05.2

Urbana-Champaign campus you'll find a stately brick mansion built in

0:10.0

1907.

0:14.2

The porch is flanked by a pair of ornamental lions painted in gold.

0:19.3

And the property's craftsman architecture has earned it a place in the National Register of Historic Places.

0:27.0

But the things that go on inside are a little less dignified. We get like chili cheese dogs for breakfast.

0:37.0

Oh yeah, just partying.

0:40.0

It's a pretty fun time.

0:43.0

That's Anthony Anderson.

0:45.0

Anthony, we call double A. I call him Tross because we called him like,

0:50.0

it was like double albatross. I don't even really know where that came from but I

0:54.1

just call them truss all the time and that is Charlie O'Neill he has a few nicknames of

0:59.8

his own Chuck Chaz yeah Chaz is definitely stuck.

1:04.0

R O'Neil is in there.

1:06.0

I think that's like my Snapchat username.

1:08.0

Albatross and Chaz are members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the country's largest college fraternity.

1:15.2

Its purpose, according to its mission statement, is to make its brothers into true

1:19.9

gentleman.

1:21.2

Gentlemen who may or may not shatter an occasional window while hosting a

1:26.2

rager. There's just a lot of things that you know we don't necessarily break other

1:30.4

people break when people come over, chairs, beds, tables, windows, mirrors, I mean anything and everything.

1:40.0

And it turns out that all that partying can pay off.

...

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