The council awards two different kinds ofgrants to students. One type, the "project-basedgrant," funds a specific activity that a groupchoses to undertake.

The council gave project-based grants to sixdifferent groups last year.

Student groups that have no funds remaining bythe end of the year can apply for a general grant.Last year 117 groups applied for these grants, and110 received them.

Some student leaders also praised the council'said in cost-cutting. The council is currentlyexploring a plan to loan out College-owned vansfor student group use.

Arrested Development?

Many groups also receive funding from theiralumni in the form of endowments or help onparticular projects.

But these forms of funding fail to financiallysupport many student organizations.

"We are underfunded," says Justin Osofsky '99,president of HSPDS. "Generally the University haddeclined [our requests for funding]. It uses theU.C. for this."

In addition to grants from the council, theteam judges at high school debate tournaments toraise money.

Osofsky adds that other schools have greaterfunds for their debating teams.

"Most other schools receive some level ofuniversity funding," Osofsky says.

He says the Harvard team's lack of funds putsit at a disadvantage in comparison with other,more heavily funded university teams.

"The unfortunate thing about student groups isthat it really does hurt a team [not to receivefunding from the university]," Osofsky says."Other schools gain a competitive advantage overus."

Tobey, the group's treasurer, says althoughHarvard's debate team is one of the best in thenation, it could attend many more tournaments ifthe University helped to fund the team.

"We could be doing so much more and making agood name for the University but we don't have themoney," he says.