"Between semesters, plans change and leadershipchanges for individual groups," Steffen says."It's hard to know what's going to happen a yearafter they receive funding so we had some groupsthat spent all their money early in the year."

Yale's UOFC meets 10 times a year to allowgroups to continually ask for more money.

Columbia has tried to institutionalize theprocess, connecting student groups directly to thecommittee that distributes funding.

But Kornfeind, the CCSC's treasures, says eventhough group treasurers and presidents elect the12 members of the Union of Student Organizations(USO), the committee that distributes studentgroup funds, the outcome has not been consistentlysuccessful.

"Some USO members are not diligent aboutkeeping in touch with their assigned groups," hesays, explaining that communication problems haveplagues funding efforts.

Penn avoids that problem by giving theresponsibility of distributing funds to theirStudent Activities Committee (SAC), which consistsof all 150 treasurers of all registered studentgroups who vote on each group budget allocation.

While SAC elects an eight-member executiveboard to guide the allocation process, SAC ChairSteven J. Schorr says the composition of SAC"allows for a lot of people to have input."

Still, Steffen says the biggest problem atWashington University is ignorance about how thesystem works.

Naftalis finds that confusion over Yale'smyriad of funding sources, applications anddeadlines has led him to help redevelop thefunding handbook to explain the system and put allthe application forms in one place.

Columbia is moving towards the computerizationof forms so that groups can learn regulations onthe Internet and apply for funding by e-mail,Kornfeind says.

Regulations

The distribution process at Columbia is "verylong, very democratic and very inefficient,"Kornfeind says. He also admits that the processcan be "pretty arbitrary".

Four members of the USO have quit this semesterover disagreements.

Montenegro, Columbia's student president, saysshe believes the only way out of sticky argumentsis further standardization.

"Case-by-case decisions don't work, because weend up slighting budgets of groups that shouldn'tbe," she says.