The Great American College Tour: Term Bill Edition

When students select their pick for Undergraduate Council president in one week, voters will also be able to decide whether to raise the student activities fee on a termbill unchanged since 1988.

Last spring, a referendum to increase the fee from $20 to $50 per year failed to receive the necessary voter turnout for the council or the College to consider it binding.

According to council President Noah Z. Seton '00, student groups will be the greatest beneficiaries of the fee increase. Last year, the council gave about $109,000 in grants to more than 170 student groups, and spent about $50,000 on campus events like Springfest and general operating costs, such as running elections.

"We get more than 170 grant applications each year, so the average grant that we can give gets smaller and smaller," Seton says.

If the referendum is approved, annual revenues from the termbill fee will total about $300,000, compared to a current total of $120,000.

"I would foresee about $220,000 of our revenues going to the Grants Fund [for student groups] and about $60,000 to other campus events," Seton says.

Clubs currently fund their events from their own wallets, adds Council Treasurer Sterling P. A. Darling '01.

Despite some student frustration with the proposed hike, council leaders say the $50 fee will bring Harvard into roughly the same class as many other comparable institutions.

A look at these institutions reveals that the council has been undercharging the Harvard student body for years.

Greener Pastures

Duke University's 6,300 students pay $66 per year in mandatory activities fees, and last year, $411,000 benefited

62 student groups, a grant-per-group ratio considerably higher than Harvard's.

"If we only had $20 per student, we would end up cutting a lot of our programming," says Jimmy Carter, president pro temp of the Duke Student Government.

Just two stops away on the Red Line, Tufts University is another land of plenty for student groups.

Each of Tufts' 4,800 undergraduates pay a $179 mandatory fee annually to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate.

That totaled $800,000 for the senate to dole out to student groups last year, according to Ben Azoff, treasurer of the senate.

Operating costs and campus events, such as concerts and the annual Spring Fling--as well as a surplus that is invested each year--bring the senate's annual budget to over $1 million.

The senate gives about $50,000 each year to the Carmichael Society, the Tufts umbrella organization for undergraduate volunteer activities. By comparison, the Undergraduate Council at Harvard gives $16,000 to the Phillips Brooks House Association.

The student activities fee is adjusted by the Tufts administration each year roughly based on inflation.

While Tufts has been plagued by low turnout in recent elections--25 percent of the student body voted in this year's presidential elections--Azoff says students have not questioned the senate's ability to handle such a large amount of money.

"The entire process is generally under student control," Azoff says. "The University decided long ago to do it this way, and no one really challenges the precedent now."

Lagging Behind

While Princeton students must pay an Undergraduate Student Government (USG) fee of $55 each year, very little of that money ultimately finds its way to student groups due to the USG's high operating costs and visible role on campus.

According to USG President Spencer Merriweather, the USG brings an outside band to campus for about $40,000 each semester, prints an annual course guide, and runs shuttle buses to local malls and movie theaters. The USG also has three paid office staff members.

The result is that only $28,000 per year is earmarked for student groups, and the USG Projects Board doles out this money on an event-by-event basis. According to USG Treasurer Rebecca Choi, the termbill fee funds about 50 of Princeton's more than 200 registered student groups.

"A lot of people think that there should be more avenues to go to and more flexible funding available," Choi says. "The Projects Board was originally a last resource for student organizations, but now it's a primary funder."

According to Choi, student groups can also apply for grants from Princeton's academic departments and the dean's office, but most organizations are self-funded--either from membership fees, alumni donations, or other revenues.

"We have a mechanism by which student groups can be created on a whim, and it's a burden to kick out money to those groups," Merriweather says. "In a lot of ways, we're [also] doing what [the college] should be doing anyway," he adds, referring to the USG's shuttles and other services.

The USG fee was raised six years ago from $35 per year but, according to Merriweather, another increase in the near future is unlikely. Even so, he says that the USG provides a lot for what it has.

"We've done a lot with what we have," Merriweather says. "The other Ivy League schools, with the exception of Harvard, don't seem to have the same problems with funding that we do."

Another school where student group funding does not come easy is MIT, where there is no itemized student activities fee. There, the Undergraduate Association (UA) Finance Board receives a sum of $100,000--roughly equal to what the Undergraduate Council at Harvard gives to student groups--from the dean of students' office to distribute to student groups.

The result, says Assistant Dean for Student Life Programs Katie O'Dair, is that student groups are "severely underfunded."

"We don't know what's not happening here because of the lack of funding," O'Dair says. "I would support a student activities fee, but the students feel that such funding should be paid for out of their tuition."

According to O'Dair, the UA held a referendum eight years ago to create a termbill fee, but it was voted down by MIT students.

Choose Your Own Venture

Stanford may have reached a happy medium.

The $55 quarterly activities fee of the Associated Students of Stanford University's (ASSU)--netting the student government $1.4 million each year--may seem hefty, but a unique refund policy allows students to pay for only what they use.

For example, if students do not read a certain publication funded by the fee, ASSU president Mike Levin explains, they can request a refund of the, say, $3 newsstand price.

"It's completely democratic," Levin says. "If a student does not use a resource, if you don't like your fee, then it can be refunded."

A Web site allows students to click on a host of services and demand their money back line item by line item. All funded groups received a list of refund recipients and are allowed to deny their services to those students.

The ASSU also oversees Stanford Student Enterprises, which provides on-campus advertising, linen cleaning and other services--in a role similar to Harvard Student Agencies (HSA). The ASSU relies on the enterprises for a large chunk of its funds.

Dartmouth also has teamed up with commercial ventures to bolster student government.

In recent years, Dartmouth students have found fault with the mandatory $100 activities fee.

"There was a big controversy, since students felt that they were paying enough and wanted the college to pay more money," said President of Dartmouth's Student Assembly Dean V. Krishna.

The question of funding went to Dartmouth's trustees, who decided to add the money Dartmouth receives from a contract with Coca Cola to the student life pool, in addition to raising the activity fee by $10.

At press time, University Hall and the council had not negotiated any soft drink compromise.