Scholarship money ended up being used for alcohol!

The Chicago Tribune reports.

College of DuPage trustees, administrators bill alcohol to foundation

College of DuPage trustees and senior administrators used a separate — and previously undisclosed — account at the campus’ high-end restaurant to charge thousands of dollars in alcohol to a foundation intended to fund student scholarships, a Tribune investigation found.

All totaled, the College of DuPage Foundation, the school’s fundraising arm, spent about $162,000 in donor money at the Waterleaf restaurant since it opened in late 2011. That’s on top of the nearly $190,000 in taxpayer funds spent by college President Robert Breuder and senior managers on their house accounts at Waterleaf in the past three years.

Shielded from a Tribune open records request for months and released only after Tribune attorneys intervened, the new records bolster criticism that college insiders have heavily subsidized the money-losing restaurant on the Glen Ellyn campus. Through house accounts, $1 in every $9 taken in by Waterleaf has come from the college or the foundation, according to a Tribune analysis of financial records.

Together, the publicly funded college and its foundation have spent nearly $352,000 at the tony, French-inspired restaurant.