Opinions

SBC budget increase will benefit campus

In print | February 28, 2008

This week, Student Council denied a request for chartering a student group, Punk-tum!!!, telling them to return next semester to ask for funding again. The reason given for the denial: money. The request is still hotly contested, however, among the members of the Student Council. Punk-tum!!!’s case is notable because students were asking for between $11,000 and $16,000 to fund a full color, high gloss art publication unlike any publication currently produced by students at the college.

While many students perceive most entities of the college to be exceedingly well funded, SBC’s budget is limited, and is being stretched thin by the needs of the student groups it funds. Each year, the student activities fee, which is paid by all students at the start of each year and is used to fund SBC, has typically been increased to keep pace with the monetary demand from students wishing to form new clubs, literary magazines and intramural sports. For the past three years, however, the student activities fee was not increased at all. As a result, the SBC has found itself in an increasingly difficult financial situation.

The students seeking funding for Punk-tum!!! have been told to request a charter next semester when the SBC’s budget will not be as tightly constrained. Fortunately, $22,000 more has been allocated for SBC starting next year, funded through an increase in the student activity fee. This was approved at last weekend’s Board of Managers meeting, as part of the increase in tuition and fees for the next fiscal year. We applaud the Board of Managers for making the decision to increase the student activity fee, given the need to maintain funding for other student groups and the eight new student groups added this year to the college.

The money raised from student activity fee is not actually controlled by the administration, but rather overseen and dispersed by the SBC, a committee comprised entirely of students. The system stands out as one of the few that allows student oversight of money spent at the college. The money allocated by the SBC is used entirely to fund the diverse array of student activities here at Swarthmore, ranging from SQU to Quiz Bowl. Such diversity of options is a privilege, and we must recognize it as such.

We commend SBC for requesting the funding increase, as it would be regrettable for Student Council to be forced to deny chartering requests in the future due solely to fiscal constraints. All the while, we hope that the SBC will continue to spend its money wisely and frequently, as any money not spent each year gets put into the capital replacement fund and cannot be rolled over for use in the next fiscal year. Ultimately, the diverse range of groups and events on campus are free for us because of this system, and we feel that the small increase in the student activity fee of only $16 per student is worth the benefit to all Swarthmore students.