Annually, DU collects $1.3 million from the undergraduate student activity fee.
The AUSA Senate distributes this money among student organizations on campus, with the lion’s share of the funds going to the DU Programs Board (DUPB), which gets $44.57 of each $300 student activity fee.
Student organizations submit their budges to AUSA in the spring, and the Senate decides how to distribute funds to the organizations for the following year.
RTD gets another $90 of each student’s annual activity fee to fund the free rides students enjoy on buses and the light rail.
The majority of funded student organizations receive between $200 and $6,000 annually. However, five groups receive most of the money: DUPB, club and intramural sports, Student Media Board, Alpine Club and Greek Council, which split almost $390,000.
The groups that receive the most money are the ones that offer programming to the entire campus community, according to Jason Lundberg, AUSA Finance Committee chairperson and president of DUPB.
Senate divides the student organizations’ budget of nearly $500,000 among 51 organizations.
The average amount each group receives is approximately $9,390. However, only seven of the student organizations receive more than that amount, while 44 receive less.
“The philosophy of the student activity fee is that it should be spent on things that are open to everyone because you are paying for it, and that’s your money, and you should be able to go,” Lundberg said.
DUPB receives more of the student activity fee than any other organization on campus.
With a budget of more than $190,000, DUPB has the resources to fund DU’s student activities, including May Days, Homecoming and the films screened in Davis Auditorium on Thursday nights.
DUPB is divided into five committees: concerts, films, Pioneers Present, traditions and university programming support.
Each committee works together to provide events on campus for all DU students to enjoy.
DUPB also helps other student organizations finance their campus-wide events.
“DUPB looks inflated, but a lot of that money is also going back to student organizations through those smaller kind of programming support things,” said Lundberg.
“That’s one of the things that we’re working on this year, encouraging other organizations to come to DUPB not only for help financially, but also to help with programming because, since we’ve been doing it for three years, we can do it all in the blink of an eye because we know the people to get all of that done.”
Club and intramural sports, which receives the second largest amount of money, sponsor sports teams that anyone can join.
According to Lundberg, the majority of the funds go to the intramural sports teams since the club teams are more selective of their members.
The Student Media Board spends the $40,000 it receives to support media outlets on campus, including the Clarion, KVDU, the annual literary publication Foothills and the comedy newspaper Spit Valve. AUSA’s finance committee funds the popular Alpine Club.
“People should leave DU with a good lasting impression of their experience because you don’t remember the classes you take, but if you’re part of the Alpine Club, you’re going to remember when you go to Moab, Utah or when you go rock climbing,” said Lundberg.
“The student activity fee is to encourage the life of college beyond just classes.”
The $30,000 that Greek Council receives finances events that promote Greek life at DU, especially during rush.
The budget that funds the student organizations changes every year, said Lundberg. The finance committee bases its funding decisions on the organization’s previous use of student activity fee funding.
If all of the money that an organization received the previous year was spent, with most of it financing events that were open to the DU community, then that organization will most likely receive more money the following year.
“It’s tough because we have organizations that submit for like $50,000 when the year before they had $4,000, which we obviously can’t do,” Lundberg said.
“We base it on the merit of the application and type of things that they are planning and programming on campus.”
While giving all students an exciting campus experience is important, some public service groups on campus wish they received more funding for their programs.
Whitney Adams, a member of Pioneer Partners, a student organization that mentors and tutors students at University Park Elementary School, said, “This is a valuable volunteer organization to the community of Denver, the DU community and all of the individuals involved.
This organization provides supportive role models to the children who need it most. But Pioneer Partners can’t do it without supplies like paper, pencils and books, and the school can’t afford to provide those.”
Pioneer Partners receives $200 for campus programming and $600 for organization programming from Senate for the entire school year.
When presented with this information, DU sophomore Raya Vassileva said, “I’ve always wondered where our student fee goes, and how the school sponsors events like May Days and tailgates, but I never looked into it.”
After reading Lundberg’s comments, Vassileva said, “It makes sense to give money to groups open to the entire campus, but on the other hand, not everyone attends these events.
For how much money is given to organizations, the concept is fair but is not necessarily implemented correctly.”
“A good way to determine where the money should go,” Vassileva added, “would be to make an all campus survey, where students would be asked what they would be interested in doing and seeing on campus and what they want to be involved in.”
Students may have to pay more for their student activity fee in the near future as the RTD fee is expected to increase this year, according to Lundberg.
Survey results, conducted by RTD staff, have shown that students at DU have used the light rail more frequently than in the past few years.
In consequence, the university will be charged more for providing its students with RTD passes, which the students will have to pay back through their student activity fee.
