At its Thursday meeting, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) deferred a bill to change the current “70-30” split rule in student activities costs with undergraduate fee and voted on a bill regarding election issue and on several funding items.

Councilmembers concluded with principle support of the change yet also demanded co-authors of the bill to introduce clauses regarding more details of the estimated funding changes.

The Joint Bill To Establish Proportional Funding and Equitable Cost-Sharing For Student Activities Fee–Supported Organizations proposes to modify the “70-30” system in cost sharing for student activities supported by student activities fee. Currently, the “70-30″ system dictates that student organizations composed of more than 70 percent undergraduate students shall be funded by undergraduate student activity fee only. 

Conversely, activities of organizations with more than 70% graduate students will be paid for in full by graduate students’ activities fee.

David Sengthay ’26, Chair of the Undergraduate Student Senate (UGS), introduced the Bill to the meeting alongside Johan Sotelo ‘25, Financial Manager of the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU). The amendment proposed by the Bill suggests instead that student activity costs should be proportionally shared by the funds of undergraduate and graduate student activity fees. 

“If there is 45% of grad students and 55% of undergrads in [a club], the funding shall be shared proportionally [instead of the current model],” Sengthay said to the meeting. 

Sotelo presented the meeting with a spreadsheet of calculations for the impact the change would have on the 2026-27 academic year graduate student activities fee charge. Based on his presentation, the student activities fee for graduate students would increase to roughly $18 in 2026-27 academic year, which corresponds to a quarterly increase of around 6 dollars. 

Despite the relatively low small predicted change, some GSC councilors raised concerns about whether the number  is accurate and if such a move would yield further financial consequences for graduate students.

Rory O’Dwyer, a sixth year Ph.D. student in Physics and chair of GSC, said that the idea of equal proportion “implies” that the current gap between undergraduate and graduate student activities fee would be closed in a way that they equally share the cost. For the 2025–2026 Academic Year, the Undergraduate Student Activities Fee was $720 per student, while the Graduate Student Activities Fee was $189 per student, according to the bill. 

It is, however, also argued by councilors that such a scenario will not happen. 

Áron Ricardo Perez-Lopez, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in computer science, said that it is a “huge misconception that undergraduates and graduates will pay the same [amount of student activities fee]” after the reform initiated by the bill. Such a scenario, he said, would only be likely when all student organizations have an equal 50-50 proportion of graduate and undergraduate students.

Council members came to agree upon the idea of the change.GSC co-chair and third-year J.D. candidate Laurel Kim said the bill would not have an influence on the “[budgetary] discretionary decision” of the student body. 

The GSC did not vote on the bill. O’Dwyer called for the bill’s authors to come up with a clause detailing what is going to happen if the “math is wrong” where the actual amount of graduate student activities fee is significantly more than the projected amount. 

“The Bill is [realistically] deferred, GSC asks for more clarity on the details and transparency,” O’Dwyer said at the end of the meeting while Sengthay also said that he would withdraw the bill if the new motion would increase graduate students’ activities fee by a significant amount. 

GSC also voted on a bill to amend sections 8 and 9 of the Bylaws of ASSU concerning election issues, as well as on several funding items on upcoming events.

Several graduate students audited the meeting and were given chances to address the floor.

“I am afraid that they are more concerned with philosophy than the real number. I hope that there will be right representation of graduate students,” Ben Alexander, a 2nd year Ph.D. student in Physics who sat in at the meeting, said to the Daily.