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The Dean of Students Office will pay more than $43,000 to keep funding for student activities at the same level as last year after a sizable dip in students paying the Student Activities Fee.
The expense comes after 959 students opted out of paying the SAF for the 2024-25 school year — nearly 70 more than last year — according to Associate Dean for Student Engagement Jason R. Meier.
The SAF is an optional annual $200 payment intended to fund independent student organizations, House life, and events like Yardfest. The DSO distributes the fund to the Harvard Undergraduate Association, the College Events Board, House Committees, and the student advisory committee of the Harvard Foundation.
Last year, the DSO distributed a total of $1,225,500 to the four groups, but this year the DSO only had $1,182,132 to distribute. In order to match last year’s disbursement, Meier said in an interview last week that the DSO shrank their own budget by $43,368.
“We have nickeled and dimed ourselves to make that difference up,” Meier said.
Meier said that if SAF opt-outs continue to grow, the DSO may not be able to continue making up the difference.
“I do not believe we would be able to assist in this manner again,” he said. “If we continue to see the opt outs, we will see another significant cut to our HoCos, to CEB, to our student organization community.”
Both this academic year and last, the DSO allocated $522,500 to the HUA, $427,500 to CEB, $204,250 to HoCos, and $71,250 to the SAC of the Harvard Foundation. Collectively, the four groups’s funding requests — which tend to exceed available SAF funds — rose $150,000 from last year.
“It was very hard listening to these presentations from these four groups. Unreal impact, and a very significant need,” Meier said. “Having to cut these groups yet another year felt insurmountable.”
The DSO has insisted that the SAF structure — where funding for student activities originates with students — enables undergraduate organizations to remain independent from the College. To maintain this independence, Meier said, the DSO’s funding will go toward “baseline charges” such as renting tables and chairs for House formals that do not require the office to “editorialize.”
But despite the DSO’s bailout, some student leaders maintain that the College needs a more robust and sustainable system for funding student activities.
Anna G. Dean ’25, a co-chair of both the Mather House Committee and the All-House Committee — a group that represents every HoCo to the DSO — said the SAF is “super important to student life” but poses a concerning strain on low-income students.
“Being like, ‘Everyone needs to pay for their SAF’ is not a good rhetoric, because low income students shouldn’t be having to pay that,” Dean said. “Wealthy students should — I think they should have to be paying for multiple — but that’s not up to me to say.”
“This is the wealthiest institution in the country. There should be money that isn’t coming out of students’ pockets for little pizza parties that are happening every other week,” Dean added.
—Staff writer Madeleine A. Hung can be reached at madeleine.hung@thecrimson.com.
—Staff writer Azusa M. Lippit can be reached at azusa.lippit@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @azusalippit or on Threads @azusalippit.
