The future isn't free

We’re hustled near the arboretum, chased down near the steps of Ballantine, and aggressively stalked with clipboards near the Sample Gates. “Sign a petition,” we’re begged. “You don’t have to give any money.” So we sign and walk away feeling good (albeit slightly violated by their persistence) that we declared our commitment to the cause of the day.

Few petitions circulated around campus get enough signatures to reach their final destination: a small check box on OneStart’s “optional service fees” page during class registration. As a result, we rarely have to decide whether or not we want to cough up $5 for the cause we proudly signed our name in support of.

And who can blame us for holding onto our money? We scrimp and save and take out loans for ever-increasing tuition. Then we’re faced with $451.75 in mandatory student fees that go to activities, the Health Center, transportation, and technology. So when it comes to volunteering our hard-earned dough for “optional service fees,” it’s easy to just say no. In fact, it’s difficult to think of a reason to say yes.

But it wasn’t always easy to look the other way. Before the 2005-2006 school year, students had to select “yes” or “no” for every optional fee. When registration technology changed, so did the yes/no option. The default choice became no, and students had to check a box only if they wanted to pay for an optional fee.

Sarah Robinson, IUSA director of women’s affairs, organizes the optional Sexual Assault Prevention Fund (formerly the Rape Crisis Fund). She says the fund prospered before the system change.

After the technology changed, the fate of optional fees wasn’t hard to predict. As former Dean of Students Richard McKaig warned the Indiana Daily Student in 2005, “We’re making it too easy to ignore the check-offs.” As predicted, donations to the Sexual Assault Prevention Fund plummeted. The fund steadily declined ever since.
Today, getting a cause on the optional fees page is about more than raising money. Optional fees require student involvement (gathering 10,000 signatures and, once on the list, allocating the money). They ask that students make an investment in the future of the University.

For the past two or three years, student groups have rallied to collect enough signatures to get a sustainability fund on the menu of optional fees, says Jacob Bower-Bir, logistics chair of the Student Sustainability Council. Every time, their efforts failed.

This fall, however, a group of 19 student organizations on campus came together under the Student Sustainability Council to achieve this goal. Starting next fall, students will have the option to donate $5 toward campus sustainability initiatives.
Just getting the signatures is a milestone, Bower-Bir says, but it’s only a small part of the recipe for a fund’s success. Students not only need to donate, but they need to get involved in the process of spending the funds.

“You’re not buying absolution,” Bower-Bir says. “You’re buying responsibility.”
It’s easy to donate $5 to a cause and then relax knowing that someone else will solve the problem. But that’s not what a student fund is about, Bower-Bir says.
Students propose and organize student funds. If students think the University needs solar panels, that’s where the money will go.

While a quarter of the student population backed the petition to add sustainability to the optional fees list, Bower-Bir knows that even the best funds can quickly lose momentum.

Need proof? The $3 sexual assault prevention fund once collected $27,500 a year. The technology change, coupled with a lack of awareness, caused the balance to drop to $12,041 by 2011.

In the end, it’s up to us, the tired, cash-strapped, stressed-out students in the process of signing up for classes. We have to take the time to check a box.

The $3 or $5 we give to a fund might not manifest in something as tangible as a yearbook or gym locker. But what we get in return, Bower-Bir argues, is much greater. “The $5 investment will pay way more than $5 in dividends.”

So what do we get for our money? We get the satisfaction of knowing our friends are learning how to prevent sexual assault. We get the satisfaction of knowing that our campus will be a better place for the next generation of students. And we get the satisfaction of knowing we invested in the future of our University.