The Herald recently reported that the Undergraduate Council of Students has recommended a $72 dollar increase in the student activities fee for the upcoming year ("UCS votes for $72 activities fee hike," Oct. 27). This would put the fee at $250, which The Herald reported is higher than at wealthier Ivy League schools.
Though it sounds like a sudden and perhaps outrageous jump, we encourage students to see the money they spend on student activities as a worthy investment — especially when compared with the magnitude of other costs associated with attending Brown. Tuition dollars, currently near $40,000, are widely dispersed across various University expenses like support for research, funding the library system, facility maintenance and shuttle transport services. Student activities play just as vital a role in the Brown experience as those services and come at far less cost. Generous donations to the University are also usually earmarked for building expansions or department fellowships, but students can be sure that the money they pay into student activities will directly affect them. After all, it was a council of undergraduate students that devised this proposal, taking into account the best interests of the student body.
The student activities fee sustains the many organizations of which all students are either members or supporters in some form, and every dollar of the fee increase would be put back into undergraduate activities — be it in the form of expanding event publicity, group travel allowances or on-campus concert options. Mae Cadao '13, Student Activities chair and a Herald senior finance associate, wrote in an email to the editorial page board that students will hopefully not see another fee increase like this one in the next few years. Ultimately, a fee increase might mean that student groups would not have to work as hard to raise their own additional funds during the year. Many would acknowledge that co-curricular activities are as educational and meaningful as classroom experiences. With that in mind, we hope students see the necessity of expanding the student activities budget and give willingly to a fund that benefits all undergraduates.
That said, the fee hike is a short-term solution. Under-funding for student groups has been a consistent problem, and the administration has made it a goal to address the issue in the long run not by increasing the student activities fee, but by eliminating it all together. President Ruth Simmons saw the need to start a student activities endowment and seeded the project with $100,000. We are deeply grateful that Chancellor Emeritus Stephen Robert '62 P'91 saw fit to donate $1 million to the endowment, because, as he told The Herald last spring, students should not have to bear the burden of additional costs to enjoy co-curriculars at Brown. Yet the fund's current standing at $1.8 million falls far short of its intended aim of reaching $17 million, and if student activities fees are to come down or disappear any time soon, we have to make some progress toward that goal.
We urge donation solicitation for the student activities endowment to continue and commend the new strategies UCS plans to employ in demonstrating the need in this area. We also hope that potential donors will see that undergraduate students value their organizations and events enough to step up to this fee hike while trusting that a long-term fix will come to fruition.
Editorials are written by The Herald's editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
