As special fees legislation hits the headlines, the special fees refund process -begins to rear its ugly head. Each quarter, students are allowed to apply for a refund from programs that they do not agree with, do not receive a benefit from or think are ineffective. This is what the refund program was created to do. Like many good ideas, however, the refund process has been corrupted by those taking advantage of the system. The majority of those who request special fees refunds appear to do so simply to get the money.

Refund rates for special fees groups range from 9.6 percent to 18.5 percent, the average being around 16 percent. This amounts to a total of $115,794 for the winter quarter, up from last quarter’s total of $79,604. This quarter’s total of 1,132 refund requests marks the highest number of students asking for refunds in the last three years. The number of students asking for full refunds also hit a three-year high with 379 requests. With over a third of refund-recipients refusing to support any special fees group, it appears that many students simply do not feel the need to contribute to campus organizations, and would rather just keep the money for themselves.

A gaping hole in the process, however, is that it is often difficult to prevent students who have taken refunds from utilizing the same services they declined to support. Groups have the option of denying service to those students who requested refunds, but when only a list of SUID’s of those asking for refunds is published, there is no way for groups to know the names of students who received a refund from their budgets. Without real repercussions, abuse of the refund process is sure to continue. It is highly improbable that any student disagrees with every special fees group on campus, and never derives benefits from any such group.

The Editorial Board urges the ASSU to consider and explore other options to the current special fees refund process. One simple way to curb the refund amount is to cut the window for refund application down from three weeks to one week. Also, the refund could be made to the party paying the University Bill, bypassing the student’s hand directly and removing the motive of quick easy cash in order to make the student consider the choices made in asking for specific group refunds. The best option would most likely be to make the refund payment fit a graduated scale. In this scenario, students would have to rank the special fees groups by refund request. The first choice receiving a 100 percent refund, the second 80 percent and so on.

Whatever changes are made to the refund process, the greatest need is in making sure that there are repercussions for taking a refund. In the current system, the student stands to gain without the risk of loss. The special fees groups, on the other hand, remain the perpetual loser. Let us not, as Stanford students, forget the value of these organizations to our campus, our community and our diversity.

Stanford is a community, a marketplace of ideas and services. The idea that students and groups work together to promote campus diversity benefits every student in equal yet different ways. Unless the refund process is reformed, it will remain the source of easy cash for the cynical and thoughtless. And the campus as a whole will pay the real price.