While the grants the Undergraduate Council gives to student organizations are extremely important, increasing them to 63 percent of the council's budget relegates the rest of the council into obscurity. Former council treasurer and vice president Brian R. Blais '97 wrote in a cogent post to the council's news-group that raising the amount the council allocates to the grants process cripples the other parts of the council, effectively precluding experimentation in new events and services for the campus.
The argument proponents of the grants increase often employ is that many of the council's events are ill-planned and badly attended. The less money the Campus Life and Student Affairs committees have to plan new events, the less likely they are to be successful. Increasing the grants allocation contributes to a cycle of decline for these other committees, making them more susceptible to future budget-cutters. Down the road, this change is likely to transform the council as a whole into a clearing-house for grants, not a true student government.
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