The new college school year has begun and the many student groups either have held or soon will hold their initial meetings. There is nothing objectionable about students with like interests getting together to pursue them, any more than for residents of a subdivision who like playing bridge, for example, to get together for a few hands. Unfortunately, student groups don’t rely entirely on money that comes from willing participants and there is something objectionable about that.
At each of the institutions of the UNC system, students are assessed, in addition to their payments for tuition, mandatory “student activity fees.” Some of the money thus collected goes toward the expense of running the student union, student TV and radio stations and similar services that are available to all and would be difficult to charge for on an individual basis. The rest of the money is distributed by the school’s student congress to various campus groups that have requested funding.
Using common political parlance, students are taxed and the money is allocated through a majority rule system. That’s as American as apple pie, right? So why complain about it?
The reason is that this system runs contrary to something that is far more genuinely American – personal choice.
The distinctive feature of personal choice is that you pay for what you want and are not compelled to pay for things you don’t. In a political system, however, while you may still be able to pay for what you want, you can’t avoid paying for many things you don’t want. Substituting politics for personal choice is a bad idea, for several reasons.
The most obvious reason is that it needlessly makes individuals subservient to the dictates of the political majority. At one time in the early United States, all citizens were taxed to support an official church. That was true, for example, in Virginia. Thomas Jefferson fought for the repeal of that system of politicized religion, arguing that “It is sinful and tyrannical to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves in.” That, however, is inevitably the case when people are taxed to help pay for things chosen by others.
At UNC-Chapel Hill, the mandatory fees yield a fund of approximately $350,000. That amount is then allocated to requesting student organizations by the student government. The money goes to a wide array of groups, ranging from the non-political, such as the American Red Cross Club, UNC Ballroom Dance and Carolina Music Outreach to the overtly political, such as Campaign to End the Death Penalty, Feminist Students United, Student Environmental Action Coalition, Conference on Race, Class, Gender and Ethnicity, Carolina Students for Life, and College Republicans.
In the allocation of funds, politically left groups do better than do politically conservative groups by a ratio of more than 3 to 2. That difference, however, is probably not enough to trigger the Supreme Court’s standard of “viewpoint neutrality.” In the case Southworth v. University of Wisconsin Regents, the Court held that the allocation of student fees must be done in a manner that does not blatantly favor some political views and ignore others. Even if the allocation of money were perfectly equal, however, that still would not resolve the problem Jefferson identified. If some of your money is taken to support a group you disapprove of, it is no comfort to know that some of your money is also taken to support other groups that you might like. The only solution is to allow individuals the freedom to spend and donate their money as they think best.
True, the amount of money doled out is small per student. Pro-life students, for example, lose less than a dollar of their fees to pro-choice organizations; pro-choice students lose less than a dollar of their fees to pro-life organizations. It isn’t the amount that matters, however, but the principle.
Would it be possible for student groups to exist if they did not receive handouts from student government? Yes. They have the ability to raise funds on their own from students and outsiders who approve of what they do. Competing for the voluntary support of people is far more wholesome than competing for political patronage, whether it’s from the U.S. Congress or student government.
Furthermore, the politicized system of funding necessarily becomes bureaucratic. A review of student fee decisions in the UNC system recently done by analysts at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reveals some absurdities. For example, a student group at UNC-Charlotte had to petition the student government for permission to transfer small amounts of money from printing and postage to travel. Such red tape entanglements and the time they waste would be avoided if campus groups were self-reliant.
The problems with the student fee system are a microcosm of the problems the United States suffers for having become a highly politicized society. Our vast political game of trying to make off with as much money that has been confiscated from taxpayers as possible leads to enormous waste and corruption. The prevailing system of mandatory student fees and student government allocations is a training ground for that game. It sets a bad example by telling students that it’s all right to get what you want by making others pay for it — as long as the process is overseen by governmental authority.
These mandatory fees and political allocation of the funds ought to be ended.