When students select their pick for Undergraduate Council president in one week, voters will also be able to decide whether to raise the student activities fee on a termbill unchanged since 1988.

Last spring, a referendum to increase the fee from $20 to $50 per year failed to receive the necessary voter turnout for the council or the College to consider it binding.

According to council President Noah Z. Seton '00, student groups will be the greatest beneficiaries of the fee increase. Last year, the council gave about $109,000 in grants to more than 170 student groups, and spent about $50,000 on campus events like Springfest and general operating costs, such as running elections.

"We get more than 170 grant applications each year, so the average grant that we can give gets smaller and smaller," Seton says.

If the referendum is approved, annual revenues from the termbill fee will total about $300,000, compared to a current total of $120,000.

"I would foresee about $220,000 of our revenues going to the Grants Fund [for student groups] and about $60,000 to other campus events," Seton says.

Clubs currently fund their events from their own wallets, adds Council Treasurer Sterling P. A. Darling '01.

Despite some student frustration with the proposed hike, council leaders say the $50 fee will bring Harvard into roughly the same class as many other comparable institutions.