September 25, 2012

In November, Missouri Students Association President Xavier Billingsley plans to ask the Student Fee Review Committee for an MSA fee increase to cover $200,000 worth of services.

Increasing student fees is justifiable in some situations, but MSA’s newest request isn’t one of them.

Student fees are a necessary evil, and parts of the money would go toward worthy causes. For instance, $45,000 would go to the Relationship and Sexual Violence Prevention Center, clearly an important center on campus. But the majority of that money, $150,000 worth, would go to the Department of Student Activities for concerts, speakers, films and other presentations.

Demanding that much money from the student body for trivial events like concerts isn’t a valid request and, quite frankly, it isn’t in our best interests.

RSVP Center Coordinator Danica Wolf’s salary has been paid by a grant thus far, but next year that money runs out. Wolf’s work is a valuable resource on campus, and not every campus has a place dedicated to women’s safety. In fact, most universities lump centers like the Women’s Center and the RSVP Center together, and it takes up most of their resources just to provide the services in the RSVP Center, eliminating most of the services the Women’s Center provides.

Should student fees be increased to keep something as valuable as the RSVP Center on campus? Absolutely. But to help fund “big” names for concerts, as Billingsley put it? That’s unacceptable.

By paying more in fees, Billingsley hopes to give DSA the ability to bring more prominent artists and speakers to campus with a lower ticket price. But that doesn’t make concerts “cheaper” — it just spreads costs among all students, most of whom won’t even attend or benefit from the show. It all boils down to DSA bragging rights, something we don’t want our fees going toward.

Student fees exist to spread the cost of essential, useful resources among the student body. Concerts don’t qualify. We don’t mean to imply DSA doesn’t bring great speakers and shows to MU. Just last year it brought Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Meyers, and its Fun. show is in November.

We just don’t think an additional $150,000 is a reasonable funding boost, given the names it’s been able to get with its current budget. We don’t care tickets aren’t free or even close. It makes much more sense to make students actually going to DSA-funded shows to shoulder the cost than to spread it among all students.

Billingsley plans to request funding as a lump sum of $200,000. By putting Wolf’s salary in the same breath as a few bigger concerts, Billingsley is putting the RSVP Center at risk of being overshadowed. In reality, it’s much more important than DSA, and as such, should be given priority funding. It’s insulting for it to be tacked on to a $150,000 request for more money for trivial concerts.

If this student fee increase is approved, it will be seen as an increase for DSA, not for the RSVP Center. If Billingsley can get $150,000 for DSA just because he packaged it with a useful fund, that could start a trend. Students’ wallets are already stretched — demanding more for unnecessary services will only put more of a negative connotation on “student fees.” That will only make it harder to pass useful increases in the future for things like the RSVP Center.

Comments

The Maneater has the right to remove comments that do not comply with policies surrounding hate speech.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to content