While British students took to the streets last month to protest tuition hikes in the UK, one man at the University of Colorado-Boulder opted for a more subtle approach.
Nic Ramos, a sophomore at the University of Colorado-Boulder, paid his entire spring semester tuition–all $14,309.51 of it–with dollar bills, a penny, and a fifty cent piece Friday.
“It kind of started as a joke,” Ramos, an economics major, told The New York Times. “But when I thought about it more…it’s just an absurd amount of money. I wanted to give the school a different way to look at tuition.”
Ramos spent two days withdrawing the money from several different bank accounts. When he stepped into the bursar’s office Friday with a 33-pound bag stuffed with dollar bills, the tellers were stunned, Ramos said. University spokesman Bronson Hilliard said it took three people almost an hour to tally up all the cash.
Though University of Colorado tuition has increased in recent years, it has not risen for Ramos. A California resident, Ramos pays out-of-state tuition, which has remained the same for four years.
[WATCH: Nic Ramos pays tuition in dollar bills]