WASHINGTON ―The holidays are a time of giddy wishes and free-spending for all of us. Even so, things can get a little out of hand from time to time, as they did for Jarred Oleman, head of the Office of Student Financial Assistance at the George Washington University.

Oleman confirmed yesterday that he had indeed spent the entirety of the 2016 financial aid endowment on a collection of enormous balloons which have appeared over the decades in Macy’s traditional Thanksgiving Day Parade.

“It was a moment of weakness,” Oleman said in a prepared statement at a press conference yesterday. “I was wrapped up in the mood of the day and when I saw them floating down 38th street toward my television screen, I had to have them!”

The balloons were purchased from an anonymous online dealer known only by the mysterious pseudonym macysman71. Among the lot purchased are such iconic favorites as the Pop-Eye balloon, which made its debut in 1961, as well as last year’s favorite, SpongeBob with a Santa Claus hat, and the Monopoly Man balloon which famously struck down a street lamp in 2010.

University President Steven Knapp was quick to condemn the squandering of institutional funds, though unnamed sources from the inside have told the GW Ax that the president allegedly admitted he hoped this debacle would draw attention away from his own questionable investment, the Textile Museum.

With the loss of financial aid resources, the Office of Student Financial Assistance estimates that university attendance will need to be cut in half by next semester.

As outrage mounted across campus, and indeed across the country and the world, Oleman revealed that there is a glimmer of hope for the student body.

“There is a thirty day return period,” Oleman told reporters and a mob of enraged students from behind a sheet of bulletproof glass, “we can put this all right yet!”

While returning the balloons and retrieving 2016 endowment would, of course, be the more tactful solution to this crisis, certain more financially minded elements within the university advise a different approach.

“This could be a great opportunity for us as an institution,” said economics professor and part-time robber-baron James Kulick. “By putting the balloons back on the market a few at a time, the university could stand to make a considerable profit.”

The Ax had sought but not received comment from the seller, and it is rumored that the administration was weighing the options of Kulick’s proposal.