After intense debate this school year, students will face a $25 increase in the optional fee they pay for student activities this fall.

Initial talks of a Student Activities Fee hike drew a small but vocal opposition on the Undergraduate Council (UC), launching over a month of heated discussion that some council members say forced them to reconsider the structure and role of the student government. The hike’s successful passage in a student referendum led two council members to resign their positions.

“In the short-term, it made the semester a little hectic,” said Russell M. Anello ’04, one of the co-sponsors of the proposal. “In the long-term, it gave the UC more legitimacy.”

The change marks the third time the optional termbill fee has risen since its 1981 inception. It jumped from $10 to $25 in 1988 and increased to its current $35 level in 2001. It will rise to $60 next year, and to $75 the following year.

BILL BATTLE

The referendum bill, which allowed students to vote on whether they supported the hike and whether the fee should be made mandatory, underwent heavy amendment, including a measure that reduced the originally proposed $100 fee to $75.

Proponents of the hike argued that the money would facilitate improved services—such as more movie nights and larger, better-produced concerts—and more opportunities within student groups because of more funding for grant requests. These social opportunities would, they said, help improve student life at Harvard.

A larger budget, Anello said, would also allow for “new ideas.”  

But Anello recognized that the issue could be a potentially contentious one.

“We understand it’s not a simple sell because people’s gut reaction is ‘I don’t want to pay any more money,’” Anello said in late April.

But according to council data, Harvard’s Undergraduate Council fee falls well below the norm. Stanford University, Northeastern University and Boston College all have annual fees around the $100 mark, while Dartmouth College and Boston University have fees of $450 and $414 respectively.

Joseph R. Oliveri ’05, who opposed the hike, contended that “a lot of the statistics [supporters of the hike] showed were very misleading,” saying that other schools include other services within their student activities fees.

And Andrew C.W. Baldwin ’05, a former council representative, noted that some schools, like Yale, do not even include a student activities fee.

Joshua A. Barro ’05, who led the opposition, compared the fee increase to a tax hike and took issue with the council’s ability to handle an expanded budget, as well as its ability to accurately assess student needs.

For his part, Barro’s apprehensions about the council still remain.