Kate Middleton To Dine With Wall Street’s Elite: Do The Poor Get To Wait Tables?

When Kate Middleton and Prince William cross the pond and touchdown this side of the Atlantic next week, as well as being expected to meet and greet fellow multi-millionaires and NYC ambassadors such as Beyonce and Jay-Z, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will also be enjoying a spot to eat with the great and good of Wall Street.

Business Insider reports that Kate Middleton and Prince William will attend a gala at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to raise funds for their old college – the 600-year-old St. Andrews.

Kate and Wills first met at St Andrews and it was there where the romance first started to blossom, so it’s no surprise the royal couple have a soft spot for their old alma matter.

The dinner date with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is scheduled for December 9, and according to the New York Post, there’ll be a star-studded line-up of lovelies and luminaries from the worlds of both finance and showbiz.

The 600-person dinner in honor of Kate and William will be held inside the hall housing the Temple of Dendur. A VIP table for 10 costs $100,000.

Guests expected to be in attendance include private equity executive Olivier Sarkozy and his actress girlfriend Mary-Kate Olsen; Citigroup’s CEO Michael Corbat, whose daughter attends St. Andrews; and Alastair Borthwick, head of global commercial banking for Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

So let’s be honest, these guys can probably afford to wine and dine in style. It’s not been established if Kate Middleton and Prince William are also fronting up the $100,00 price tag, but Scottish actor Sean Connery will be the emcee for the evening, Sting is also taking a break from saving the rain forest to preform, and Tom Hanks is also expected to be found mooching in the shadows.

Kate Middleton’s old college, St Andrews, is delighted the event is going ahead and says it has a “tiny endowment” and is working to raise £100 million ($56.7 million). On its website it states.

“Funds raised during the evening will support student scholarships and bursaries, new student sports facilities in St Andrews, investment in the university’s medical and scientific faculties and a lectureship in American Literature at St Andrews.”

Which is no doubt music to the ears of the record number of homeless people in New York. According to the Homeless Alliance of Western New York, over 5,700 people experienced homelessness in the local area in 2013, and over 2,000 families with children lived in an emergency shelter or transitional housing.

In the Bronx’s Devanney triangle park, there is such a large number of homeless people that the community board and parks department are discussing the removal of all benches.

Many NY-based St. Andrews alums are also appalled by the high price of the opportunity to dine with Kate Middleton and Prince William, with one graduate expressing his disgust in the NY Post.

“I’m not shelling out that kind of money, and none of my peer group is going. St. Andrews prides itself on being understated and devoid of pomp and circumstance — that’s why William went there in the first place. This is about St. Andrews boosting its profile on Wall Street.”

Sadly, if you’d like the opportunity to dine in the presence of Kate and William, and your address reads ‘Desolation Row,’ rather than ‘Wall Street,’ it just isn’t happening friend. Having said that there going to need a lot of waiters and waitresses at a dinner for 600 people. So why not chance your arm and give it a go. The tips should be pretty decent at least.