“Give me my money back!” echoes the rallying cry of many Stanford students at the beginning of each term as they claim their ASSU fee refund for the quarter. Yet the question remains as to whether there is justification for keeping the current fees allocation system. The answer is that the current setup for special/general fees should be abolished and be replaced by a completely voluntary opt-in policy.

The current special fees system is comprised of both special and general fees. Special fees are funds distributed to individual groups which are approved by a majority vote of the student body during the yearly elections. General fees are funds distributed by committees established by the ASSU Senate to groups in three categories (Programming, Publications, and Community Service). The funds distributed through general fees are capped at a level less than is available through special fees.

Last year, the ASSU faced a budgetary crisis due to the increasing occurrence of student-requested refunds in the special fees system. As a result, the ASSU Senate instituted a number of reforms with the intent of making it more difficult for students to receive refunds, including requiring students to cite reasons for their refund and crediting the refunds to the university bill as opposed to issuing direct checks to students.

The theory behind these changes was that many students are either too lazy or too busy to spend the extra 15 or so minutes required in requesting their refund when they won’t be able to directly receive the cash. Numerous student leaders were lamenting the fact that a large number of students were requesting refunds solely to buy beer. However, if these students would rather purchase alcohol than donate to random student groups which provide them no benefit, why shouldn’t these students be able to spend their money however they choose? In the past, I once used my refund as a Church offering. Another time I bought a video game. This quarter I’d like to use it to buy a Stanford Review shirt. The point is that I should have control over this money to do with it whatever I please because it is, in fact, my money, not the ASSU’s. To its credit, at least the ASSU has established some sort of refund mechanism, which isn’t available at all other schools.However, while it may not be as bad as it could possibly be, the system is in dire need of replacement. Students with ideological objections to funding certain organizations which receive special fees can request a refund from those specific groups. However, students with ideological objections to funding certain organizations which receive general fees must request a refund from the entire category of general fees, and hence affect all organizations that benefit from that fee.

What makes this situation worse is that, according to the ASSU’s website, if you are the President or Financial Officer for a student organization, your group cannot get money from the general fee if you request a refund. Thus, if I was the President of The Stanford Archery Club, and I had an objection to funding the Stanford Students for Choice, I could not request a refund from the Programming General Fee without preventing the Archery Club access to that fee. Why should the Archery Club or any other organization that I might want to support suffer the adverse effects of my refund because I have differences with a completely unrelated organization?

The entire election process is also flawed. Why should any student be expected to fund an organization against which he or she voted? What makes a group that receives 51% of the vote worthy of $30,000 in special fees while a group with 49% of the vote worthy of nothing? Groups that do not have the support of the majority should have every much a right to request funds from its constituents as groups that do. Why should the organizations that I choose to support be affected in any manner whatsoever by what the rest of the student body thinks or what the ASSU Senate thinks?

The ASSU desires that special and general fees serve as stepping stones for student organizations to achieve financial self-sustainability. However, the incentives in the current system are contrary to that goal. A group such as the Daily was initially rejected by the ASSU for placement on the special fees ballot in large part because it had achieved a level of self-sustainability through reserves. Similarly, Dance Marathon, a group dedicated to raising money to fight AIDS, was rejected by the Senate for placement on the special fees ballot because it was able to financially sustain itself this past year. In other words, the incentive is for groups to not seek alternate means of funding and instead to rely as much as possible on special/general fees because they might lose all means of student support should they plan too successfully.

Why should group members put in all the effort of obtaining self-sustainability when they can just rely on the ASSU and the student body to provide for them perpetually?

The special fees system promotes the mentality that government knows how to spend your money better than you, so we’re going to take it and spend it and make it as difficult as possible to get your money back. Students should have the option of choosing to invest in whatever group or organization they want, and should not be forced to loan out their money for months on end in order to prevent themselves from funding organizations they don’t want to. In addition, many students are entirely unaware they even have the option of getting refunds. In effect, it’s like someone taking $250 out of your wallet and claiming it’s not stealing because they would have given it back if only you came to them and gave them a good reason for wanting it back—only, you may not have known it was possible to ask for it back.Undoubtedly, eliminating the refund process and changing the special/general fees system to an opt-in policy instead of an opt-out policy will make it much more difficult for groups to get funding from students.

However, this means that only students who really want to fund a group will do so, which is the only fair option available to everyone. Eliminating special/general fees means these groups will actually have to work to receive their funding, and that they will spend their money more judiciously. Group members would have to demonstrate how helping their group helps you and why you should choose to help this group. Requiring this means that groups will have increased incentive to appeal to and include the entire student body, which in turn would result in an increased awareness of these groups.

These added efforts will be difficult, of course, but ultimately, I believe, would make the groups that survive much stronger and better able to provide the best extracurricular opportunities to the Stanford community.But, you say, what about my group that receives fees money and only benefits a small number of people on campus? Our members don’t have enough money to fund everything we want to do. Well, the truth is that most students have very little income. So why should students be unwillingly compelled to fork over what little bit of money they have to random groups that have nothing to do with their interests?

The only solution is to design an opt-in system, which should be facilitated and coordinated by the ASSU, in which students should be presented with a list of every student group and then be allowed to choose at the beginning of every year, before they send in any money, which groups they wish to fund and how much they wish to give. This would eliminate the ASSU budgeting problems because the entire issue of having to deal with refunds would be eliminated. More importantly, this would solve the fairness issue in that every student group would have equal access to all students for funding while students would be able to have total control over their own money.