Editorial: Money troubles

With over 300 clubs, the University is long overdue in looking at reducing the number of chartered student organizations on campus. Although there are benefits to having a large number of clubs, there simply is not enough money or manpower at the University to support the current number.

Clubs work best when they have an established presence on campus, a sizable and dedicated membership and qualified leaders. However, with so many organizations, it is impossible that all 300 clubs satisfy these criteria.

The diffusion of resources is especially serious when it comes to funding. If the University wants to recognize every club that is not such a big deal, but when it comes to paying for the activities of all these clubs, that is problematic with a limited budget. Perhaps funding for clubs should be based on the amount of participation in them in addition to club needs.

Perhaps the clubs that are hurt worst by the current situation are middle-of-the-road ones. Most small clubs can survive off the small stipends they receive and large clubs get almost all the money they want, but mid-sized ones often seem to fall through the cracks, since they need a good deal of money, yet do not.

In addition to examining the viability of clubs themselves, the University should also closely look at what groups it is funding and why it is funding them. Large clubs, or at least those clubs that receive large amounts of University money, should be carefully scrutinized to ensure their money is both necessary and is being productively spent. The key is to ensure that the money being freely doled out to certain organizations is warranted and that the money could not be put to better use funding other activities.

Although the stipends for each small individual club are tiny--only a couple hundred of dollars in most cases--in aggregate, the impact is large. Fifty clubs at $200 each adds up to a total bill of $10,000, money that could be used to finance other clubs.

Ultimately, the University must develop a system to screen groups and to evaluate their monetary needs. The plan devised last year to have a committee making the decisions about where money should go seems like a viable option that is much preferable to either an administrator making the decisions or the current relatively unregulated free-for-all. Although the committee's decisions would surely be difficult and the process of deciding which groups to fund and at what levels would not be easy, it is necessary to ensure the well-being and equal treatment of all clubs on this campus.