One of the worst things that ever happened to college students was letting students try to govern themselves. Case in point: UW-Eau Claire (translation: stinks like a donut). The loonies in control of the student government there attempted to augment the pay of instructors by taxing the students directly through "segregated fees." Fortunately for the Eau Claire student body and students throughout the UW system, the Chancellor is capable of recognizing one boneheaded idea a semester and stopped the student government there from handing out checks at the next faculty luncheon.
Segregated fees are student activity fees for, you guessed it, student activities, and are not part of the general fund made up of tuition, tax money, grants and endowments.
Every year at almost every campus student governments come up with the dumbest ideas and then directly tax to fund them. Some students even become professional student government types and live off their fellow students like parasites. When they aren't in the student government they form student organizations and actually get the student government to allocate them money for a salary. Yes, a salary for being a student in a student activity.
Soon, Spring will return, and young men and women will think of other things than how they are getting robbed by a few of their fellow classmates. But to those college students that read these words, take it from someone who once "proudly" served in student government when he was in college: abolish it. Abolish it now. Get a slate of candidates together for your student government elections with the single promise of abolishing student government. Start a petition drive towards a referendum if you have to, but far better to deal with the administration than your lunatic peers.
When you hand the keys to the student government offices to the Dean of Students, you'll discover you actually have more rights.
Update! Brad at Letters in Bottles writes about another segregated fees horror story, courtesy of United Council.
