It looks as though my top-dollar/low-rent alma mater New York University has marked Oct. 28 as its night to splurge, and why not? The film school is welcoming back a few of its most famous alumni—Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Jane Rosenthal—for the Tisch NY Gala at Cipriani.

The third-annual gala is a fund raiser for the Tisch School of the Arts, which (last I heard) charges in excess of $30K per year to attend. But the organizers are planning the event as sort of a scholarship drive as well, with tickets starting at $250 for alums and $500 for the rest of you not cool enough to have incurred the extravagant penury and debt necessary to call yourself an NYU grad.

Again, is any of this really here or there when you can plunk yourself down in black tie and good company? And at least the event is off-campus, so you can rest assured the wine will not be of the stale Washington Square vintage we always got stuck with downtown.