How the Budget of the Student Associations on College Campuses Work

The other day on my college campus I was outraged to read in my school newspaper that the Student Association which is in charge of campus activities and student organizations and clubs on campus had spent $750 on a big screen television to be placed in the Student Association Office. This outraged me for several reasons. First, every student at my university in NY pays a $75 fee for student activities and clubs. This fee is to be used to fund campus groups and clubs which need the money. The second reason that this angered me was that the television would be put in an office that hardly any students on campus actually go to. The television was being used for the enjoyment of the students who work in that office. In addition, they shouldn't be allowed to have a television using the student activity fund money because each student on the executive board receives a stipend, the largest amount being given to the president who receives $3,000 a year.

I decided to investigate into the matter to see how this student association office which control the student club budgets could be able to selfishly use this money to pay for their television.

On every college campus, the student association randomly awards money to student club groups based on what they feel is an adequate amount for that group's activities. Now this is quite unfair because many groups have a significant amount of more members than other groups. For many college organizations like College Democrats, it doesn't get nearly enough funding to help pay for its activities like raising voter awareness for the election.

Some groups don't care about the funding because they never use the money. In these cases, the money is simply returned to the Student Association budget and reapportioned. Other clubs get a raw deal because they have unscrupulous treasurers who don't get about the welfare or future of their club once they graduate. Treasurers who don't report the activity fees of their club get their club in big trouble and in some cases that money from the student association budget is stripped away from them.

Clubs and organizations on a college campus are allowed to ask for extra funding but there is so much paperwork and so much of a hassle to get this extra money that some clubs give up trying and attempt to fundraise events themselves. And finally, clubs that go through all the appropriate channels to get funding, can only ask for additional funding once and after that they are on their own: they have to fundraise and pay for activities themselves.

The leftover money that clubs do not spend goes back into the budget and the student association can pretty much do whatever they like with that money, including buying themselves a brand new big screen television.