It seems like everyone is selling out these days. First Britney, then Christina, now Iowa State.

ISU officials are close to a deal with the Coca-Cola Company for exclusive rights to market on campus. This 10-year deal, which would tie together smaller contracts around campus, could bring Iowa State a much-needed $4 million.

Selling out is getting more and more common these days, with rapper Busta Rhymes pimping Mountain Dew and r&b singer Sisqo appearing in Pepsi commercials.

Everyone from Faith Hill to Ray Charles (who actually switched brands) is peddling pop these days, with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera leading the pack with their rival deals for Pepsi and Coke, respectively.

Even former presidential candidate Bob Dole has gotten on the soda bandwagon, going from hawking Viagra to mocking his Viagra endorsements in Pepsi ads. Of course, some of my more left-leaning columnists (hi Tim!) would assure me that Dole’s used to it, having sold out to Big Business and Big Tobacco for years.

Of all the companies Iowa State could sell out to, Coke is one of the least troublesome. There’s no conflict with Iowa State’s mission to provide the best undergraduate education.

Physics classes won’t be modified to extol the carbonated-yet-caffeine-free wonder that is Sprite, and hotel and restaurant management majors won’t be taught only to sell Coke in their establishments. Incoming ISU President Gregory Geoffroy will never appear in Coke commercials snuggling up to the polar bears or busting out in Britney-style dance moves to the tune of “If I Could Give the World a Coke.”

A state university has no obligation to provide students with pop machines, much less a variety of them. Soda is a luxury item, and if you’re jonesing for a Mountain Dew, there’s Onion’s Convenience Store right at the Memorial Union, or the Kum & Go a block from campus.

As Warren Madden, vice president for Business and Finance, said, the Coke deal won’t create a “pop police.” Students are still perfectly free to bring Shasta or Mountain Dew on campus, and no one will be punished for wearing a Pepsi T-shirt.

Contradicting some reports, Madden told the Daily that Coke will not advertise on campus, but only in sports arenas. This deal will have absolutely no effect on students’ everyday lives – other than to provide them with courses, programs and faculty that might otherwise have been cut due to lack of funding.

ISU officials estimate the Coke deal could bring in $4 million in revenue to the university. Having to walk a block for a Pepsi seems a small price to pay.

Though the Coke deal could set a disturbing precedent – think Taco Bell Hall or the Revlon College of Design – ISU administrators seem to know when to quit, for now.

Madden says the university is refusing some of Coca-Cola’s demands, including exclusivity in campus convenience stores. We won’t be renaming Jack Trice the Powerade Stadium, though personally I’d rather have the ISU Coca-Cola Baseball team than no baseball team at all, but it’s too late for that.

One of the problems with monopolies is that Coke could hike up prices since there’s no competition. However, since other brands of cola are available in Ames, if not on campus, and since no one needs a Sprite that badly, Coke won’t be able to get away with raising prices more than a dime a can.

What the Coke company gets out of this deal, other than some luxury boxes at sporting events, is a pool of 25,000 students to get addicted to their products. Coca-Cola is trying to build brand loyalty, so that once ISU students graduate and move on to their high-paying jobs (except, of course, for us English and journalism majors), they’ll pick up a couple liters of Mello Yello rather than Mountain Dew each week.

Selling out is nothing new to Iowa State. What’s the difference between the Coke deal and the Greenlee School of Journalism or Howe Hall? In each case, someone shelled out big bucks to get their name on campus. While some might argue that it’s different to sell out to a private individual than to a giant corporation, c’mon. It’s sugar water, after all, not Microsoft.

What our journalism school or engineering buildings are named, or what cola company owns all our vending machines, doesn’t change the quality of our education – except to provide the funds for us to have an education.

In a perfect world, Iowa State wouldn’t need to sell out to donors or beverage companies. In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a need for correctional facilities, a police force or welfare programs, freeing up infinite state funds to provide Iowans with a top-notch undergraduate education and a wide array of soft-drink choices.

But in our imperfect world, the state of Iowa is cutting Iowa State’s funding; tuition will be raised dramatically and programs and faculty will be cut. If selling out to Coca-Cola can help prevent some of these cuts, Iowa State should go for it.

After all, Coca-Cola makes high-quality products. It’s not like they’re selling us out to Diet Rite.

A bigger concern I have is with the soda hierachy around campus that no one seems to be concerned about. Why do buildings such as Kildee Hall have nice, shiny new pop machines while students in Hamilton Hall have been stuck for years with a broken Coke can machine that won’t take dollars? But I digress.

Though it might seem a little sleazy for a university to sell out to a soft drink, at least we know what we’re getting with the Coke deal. Since the ISU Foundation, which receives donations for the university, has closed records, we have no idea who else might be paying off Iowa State.

Jocelyn Marcus is a junior in English from Ames. She is opinion editor of the Daily.