There are over 100 student organizations at the University aimed at helping students find a niche they can strive in and building community with others who share their interests. For undergraduates, joining clubs on campus does not require up-front payments due to the Student Activity Fee, which is included in tuition each semester for $101. As funding limitations impact student organizations across the University, many leaders are expressing concerns about balancing resources with the increasing demand for events and activities.
The Budget Allocation Council (BAC) is the subcommittee of the Student Government Association (SGA) tasked with managing the guidelines for spending money gained from the Student Activity Fee and allocating the funds to student organizations, conference applications and beyond.
Arianna Vides is the Treasurer of SGA and oversees the BAC. Vides said, “Allocation decisions are made on an annual basis based on the guidelines that organizations are trained on prior to submitting a budget. When allocating funds, the BAC looks for the following: do the expenses align with the mission of the organization, is the organization growing in membership size, what is their financial history, have they spent well in the past and have they complied with policies in place?” Vides added, “Student organizations as a whole request far more funding than available. In recent years, the amount of funding student organizations request has increased, while available funding has remained the same.”
Student Allocated Funds (SAF) given to each organization range in various amounts and affect their abilities to plan activities. The Vice President of Entrepreneurship Club, Gianna Santangelo said, “Our very low budget has impacted our club’s ability to plan elaborate events, to provide prizes and incentives for students, and we cannot even afford to provide food at our events. Our budget for the first semester cannot cover the cost of the smallest catering option offered from the cafeteria if we want to purchase anything else this semester.” Santangelo continued, “Although we are a newer, small club and did not have much success last semester, we are struggling to develop the club to the level we have hoped, due to the lack of funding.”
Other clubs, like Setter Stage, received more funding this semester than they have in past years. The treasurer, Fiona O’Donnell, states that this was because the club had spent all their budget last year and attendance at events has continuously increased, “However, we got significantly less than requested which has made it difficult to decide what to cut from our proposed budget, and how to reallocate funds to the most important things. Take catering for example; for our movie night event a few weeks ago we did not order a lot of food because we were not expecting that great of a turn out and we were hoping to save money for our bigger events.” O’Donnell added, “We ended up having a much larger number of attendees than anticipated, so we ran out of food almost immediately. Now we have to figure out how to order double or triple that amount of food to accommodate all of our attendees without running out of catering money.”
Sororities and Greek organizations have a unique perspective since they have their own funding through chapter dues in tandem with SAF. Olivia Spiegel, President of the Psi Delta chapter of Phi Mu, said, “The year’s budget has not really affected the ability to plan/fund events, but it can certainly pose as a stressor at the end of the year when you want to use all of it to get an equally great budget the next year and not be the reason you are negatively impacting the next set of people in your positions.” Spiegel added, “While there can be challenges with student budgeting, I am extremely grateful that going to a private institution has provided my chapter with funding from the University itself, because a lot of Greek organizations at other schools do not have the same affordance, so it really does open us up for more opportunities to boost campus presence and public relations!”
As budgeting limitations continue to impact various organizations around campus, likely due to prices increasing for a variety of services, such as food and catering, University students are feeling the brunt of inflation, particularly as it affects their ability to host events.
