The student activities fee will increase by $6 next year, part of a University budget the Corporation approved on Saturday. The small increase, which will bring the mandatory fee for all students up to $170, will generate an estimated $34,000 in additional annual funding, according to the University Resources Committee.
Projected inflation and growth in the number of student groups account for the fee's increase, said Ryan Lester '11, student activities chair of the Undergraduate Council of Students.
Last year, the fee increased $18.
The student activities fee funds on-campus events run through the Student Activities Office, which includes everything from Spring Weekend to the Human Rights film festival, Lester said.
Lester and his committee wrote a resolution in the middle of last semester to ask the URC to increase the fee.
Though the original resolution requested an increase of $8, Lester said the URC decided to take into account overall student charges and limit the fee's increase.
Lester said UCS is trying to formalize the process of lobbying the URC to increase the student activities fee.
"Over the past two years, we've really tried to be involved," he said.
Ideally, the fee "should adjust for inflation every year," Lester said.
UCS is currently working on an initiative with the University to endow the Student Activities Fund and to someday eliminate the fund.
