With a 3.5 percent increase approved by University trustees last week, the cost of attending Stanford for the 2010-2011 school year will, for the first time, exceed $50,000. Such increases are, of course, periodically necessary and can certainly be expected in a time of budget cuts and widespread economic downturn. But these expectations do not change the added pressure and worry associated with the extra bills. After all, a 3.5 percent increase amounts to more than $1,500 extra each year, which is by no means an insignificant amount to most families.

Given these stakes, the Editorial Board would like to remind students to take seriously their own role in fiscal responsibility–management of student group budgets.

We feel that the overwhelming tendency is for student groups to increase their budgets by trying to approve as much spending as possible. And as many of us who have worked with student groups know, more spending can usually be justified than is actually needed.

The passion that goes into planning all the uses for that money should not be attacked–we think it necessary that each student group should view their own purpose as worthwhile. We also think, however, that a lot of the success of student groups hinges less on the extra funds at the margins than some might realize.

Examples of spending the Editorial Board envisions student groups cutting back on include “social” budgets that too often result in meals at expensive restaurants, parties and special events that seem to serve no real purpose besides affording some students unnecessary luxury at the expense of the University. The Editorial Board fails to see the purpose of expenditures that do not contribute directly to a group’s purpose, and hopes that they will be rooted out.

Rather than taking issue with any particular group, or venting our personal anecdotes about “wasteful” spending, we would instead like to offer a courteous reminder to student groups that the funds at your disposal represent a cost to all those attending this University. The bureaucratic infrastructure to check spending simply does not have the power to consider the value of each dollar spent. That is a responsibility unique to student groups themselves, and one we hope that they begin to take more seriously in the current climate.
Thus, we hope groups continue to judiciously budget when planning events and projects. When deciding on an expenditure, ask yourself what it contributes to yourselves, to Stanford and to the audience your group aims to affect. We ask for this caution because we understand the reality that student groups do not pay for the frivolity of dollars spent in waste. Instead, when costs of attendance rise, we all are forced to pay the bill.