UW-Madison is one of a few universities at which students have primary control over distributing segregated fees, a process the Student Services Finance Committee is currently in the middle of determining.
These student fees, which are independent of tuition costs, are now at $500 per student per year, of which 20 percent are allocable fees used for funding student organizations.
Lamont Smith, SSFC chair, said average funding for organizations is around $40,000, with $6,000 being at the low end of the spectrum and hundreds of thousands of dollars at the high end.
'UW is right in the middle of the road,' said Smith, in comparison to the amount of funding other universities distribute to their organizations. 'Even if we went up $50 [for segregated fees], that's a good million dollars ... that would expand services across the board ... and reach out to many more of the 40,000 people [at this university].'
Smith said the total amount of allocable fees actually decreased by about 2.5 percent this year.
The funding system at Purdue University, another Big Ten university, is significantly different from UW-Madison's. Unlike most student groups at UW, the organizations at Purdue do not receive funding through the university.
'What makes Purdue University unique is that we do not collect student activity fees,' said Kyle Kasting, a Purdue student and executive director of external affairs. '[Purdue Student Government] does not sponsor organizations. ... It is totally up to the organizations to make their own money. '
That said, there are certain university offices that will work with student organizations to sponsor an event, but 'as far as money being allocated to student organizations, that does not happen,' Kasting said.
Fundraisers for student groups include anything from a bake sale to a go-cart race based on the Indianapolis 500.
With over 640 organizations, it is hard to find an average amount of money raised by each organization, said Norma McGinnif, associate fiscal administrator at Purdue. While some groups may survive the year with only $50, some of the bigger clubs receive outside support from corporations and have hundreds of thousands of dollars in their accounts, she said.
'Students are happy with [the system],' said Kyle Hill, a Purdue student. 'It's not coming out of their tuition.'
As for the groups, McGinnif said she thinks it makes them work harder for what they want.
'You work for it, you make it go, you've accomplished something and your organization is going to mean a lot more to the students coming in,' she said.
Out of the 450 registered student organizations at the University of Minnesota, only 29 of them receive funding from student fees. The student fees are billed into the tuition, but are specifically set aside to fund the student organizations. On average, each of the 29 organizations receive between $25,000 to $40,000 in funding per year.
'It seems like an awful lot of money ... but it's pretty important to have a phone, a computer, an office, a staff,'said Dan Kelly, Northwestern student body president. 'These four things eat up a ton of the budget. ... It's not like we're forking over a million dollars.'
The remaining 421 organizations find funding on their own either through membership dues or grants.
The funding for organizations at Northwestern comes from student fees, this year at $132 per year for each student, up from $88 per year last year, according to Courtney Brunsfeld, Northwestern student services vice president. Of the 85 organizations on campus, 39 are funded through this system.
Seventy-five percent of the profits made by each group are given back to the Student Activities Financial Board to be redistributed to other organizations the following year.
