Courtesy of ASB
A widening gap between student demand and available funding is pushing the Associated Student Body (ASB) to consider raising the Associated Student Body Fee for the first time in over a decade.
The Mossy Log contacted ASB for information regarding the allocation of the funds obtained through this fee. According to the organization, during last year’s allocations process, student groups collectively requested $932,000 in funding. However, ASB had only $495,000 available to distribute based on need, leaving a shortfall of more than $430,000. According to the ASB Cabinet, this imbalance has made funding decisions increasingly difficult and has limited the scope of student programming across campus.
Currently, the ASB fee is set at $180 per semester, a figure that has remained unchanged since 2011. This fee supports a wide range of student-run activities, including clubs, intramural sports, academic symposia and student spaces like the Coop. Additional funds may be distributed throughout the year via appeals to ASB’s Finance Committee, but those resources are limited and inconsistent.
ASB leaders argue that the static fee no longer reflects the realities of today’s campus. Inflation, rising operational costs and an increase in the number of student organizations — now approaching 120 — have all contributed to mounting financial pressure. While student engagement has grown, the funding pool has not kept pace with that rise, forcing many groups to scale back their ambitions or seek alternate funding sources.
Despite these challenges, no normal funding proposal has been submitted. Instead, ASB is in an early information-gathering phase, surveying students to gauge whether they would support a funding increase.
“What is currently happening is an information-gathering survey to gauge whether students would be willing and/or able to pay an increased fee,” ASB Treasurer Finn Watson ’26 said in an email to The Mossy Log. “This survey data will then be one part of a much larger informational packet presented to The Board of Trustees recommending a raise, should the data come back in favor of that action at all.”
ASB Auditor Whitney Schilling ’27, who oversaw the survey, commented on the popularity of this preliminary proposal and its support within ASB.
“Members of ASB have different opinions on whether the student fee should be raised, but everyone in ASB agrees that it’s time to bring this conversation to the rest of the student body, hence the survey. If students widely supported a student fee increase, I imagine there would be a lot of debates inside and outside of ASB about how large the increase should be, and what it should look like,” Schilling said over email.
The survey, which closed on April 19, reflected that participants who did not identify themselves as leaders of student organizations voted 54% in favor of raising the student fee to account for inflation, 34% opposed, and 12% voted “not sure.” Out of the student organization leaders, 53.1% voted in favor, 40.6% opposed, and 6.3% voted “not sure.”
The proposed range for a new student fee could reach up to $265 per semester, a 68% increase. ASB leaders say this figure would better align with comparable institutions and help stabilize funding levels. Even so, they acknowledge that the financial burden such an increase could place on students, particularly at a time when the overall cost of tuition continues to rise.
“There is no good time to increase costs for students,” the email statement from ASB reads, “but the problem will only continue to fester, and it will be felt by our student organizations and their operations.”
The email correspondence from ASB cites parallels to a recent increase in the optional student media fee, which rose from $20 to $35 per semester two years ago after lobbying from Mossy Log and Palatine Hill Review staff. That adjustment, which exceeded the rate of inflation, was aimed at supporting the Student Media Board (SMB) facing higher production and equipment costs since the fee was originally established in 2011. According to ASB, the increase successfully alleviated financial strain and allowed SMB greater flexibility. Leaders now suggest a similar approach could benefit the broader ecosystem of student groups.
Maya Mazor-Hoofien ’26, the Backdoor editor of The Mossy Log, was involved in the push for an increase in the fee. Mazor-Hoofien commented on the necessity of this raise.
“We faced a lot of pushback from ASB at the time for trying to raise the SMB fee, even though ASB is not supposed to have jurisdiction over the media organizations. The SMB fee was and continues to be completely optional for students to pay, and the marginal increase we achieved has made a massive difference in SMB groups’ ability to function,” Mazor-Hoofien said.
ASB has also noted that funding shortages are already affecting key programs, including emergency grants, Student Academic Affairs Board tutoring services and access to resources like the college-wide free subscription to The New York Times.
Despite these concerns, ASB has taken steps in recent years to manage the situation without raising fees. These efforts include cutting internal operational costs and introducing stricter allocation guidelines to reduce funding requests.
Watson and Schilling both expressed hope that a modest increase could not only prevent further cuts, but also improve the quality of student life by directly funding official student organizations.
“Clubs continue to come to us with ideas that we would love to be able to fund, but financially we are unable. My hope is that if the raise happens, we might see an expansion of activities and an increase in the quality of student life overall,” Watson said.
Schilling shared that if the concept garners enough support to be made into an official proposal, the board will likely discuss the matter at their next trustees meeting in early May, though the timeline may extend into the next academic year.
For now, the fee increase remains conceptual and has not been formally proposed. But with financial pressures mounting and student demand continuing to grow, the increasing budget shortfall is likely to remain a salient issue.
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