Student activities fee
As Next Party members celebrated resounding victories Monday night in the SGA’s annual executive elections, the student governing body also saw a landslide vote in favor of a referendum to raise the student activities fee by $5.28 for the 2016-17 academic year.
With tuition across the University System of Maryland rising at a not-inconsiderable 3 percent clip year after year and hints of steeper growth on the horizon — the system instituted a 2 percent midyear tuition increase this semester to mitigate $40.3 million in budget cuts — a coinciding boost in mandatory fees could prove unpopular among students, the overwhelming majority of whom declined to participate in the referendum.
Of the 4,256 undergraduate students who voted online for the Student Government Association elections, 3,326 deigned to vote in the referendum. Among those, 2,164 voted in favor of the fee increase, while 1,161 voted against it. And while it’s unclear whether the wide margin is representative of all 27,000-odd undergraduate students, the bill now moves forward to the student fee review committee for consideration.
On a campus with more than 800 student groups, managing the hundreds of thousands of dollars collected each year from the student activities fee presents the SGA with a tall order — one the organization has bungled in the past. In fall 2013, the SGA weathered a barrage of complaints from student groups unfamiliar with a new funding process that instituted monthly application deadlines and strict documentation rules. While both promoted fiscal responsibility on behalf of student groups, group members railed against the new process, citing a lack of communication on the SGA’s part in delineating changes.
To be sure, financial literacy isn’t always students’ strong suit, but student group leaders can and should expect the SGA to offer them a helping hand in navigating a challenging funding allocation system. That’s why newly re-elected SGA President Patrick Ronk’s campaign promise to work with both SGA representatives and students at large to provide budgetary and funding training and financial literacy courses, respectively, comes as such a welcome endeavor.
In 2012, the year before the SGA revamped its student group funding system, students applied for about $2.5 million; that year, as in years since, the SGA had about $450,000 available. Clearly, the hundreds of active student groups on this campus want more money than the SGA can reasonably dole out, and even with the $80,000 to $90,000 funding boost the fee increase will reel in for student groups, the SGA will have its hands full determining which groups deserve that money most.
As a result, maintaining open communication will remain paramount in the funding allocation process, and SGA leaders should be frank when informing student groups that they probably can’t receive all of their requested funds for the year, nor will that change in the near future. Given the state of the system’s finances, students likely will have to contend with yearly tuition increases higher than those they’ve grown accustomed to, and increasing the student fee by the same order in coming years would come as a irresponsible financial blow.
Though student groups might consider the fee increase a windfall — one hopefully aided by the SGA’s strengthened commitment to communication in the funding process — it’s important for them to keep in mind that others across the campus and state are tightening their belts in these trying fiscal times. Such groups would do well to cinch their budgetary plans accordingly.
