After months of planning, campaigning, delays and controversy, undergraduate students voted last week in favor of the A.S. Council’s proposal to increase the quarterly activity fee last week by $19.82, raising the total cost per student to $143.46 per year.
In order for the vote on the referendum to be valid, one-fifth of the 22,706 undergraduates currently attending UCSD needed to participate in the special election. This minimum was exceeded, as 26.8 percent of undergraduates voted overall.
Of those who voted, 3,426 students voted to affirm the referendum, while 2,620 student voted against it.
Voters turned out in similar percentages from each of the six colleges, with the highest number of voting students coming from Eleanor Roosevelt College and the least from Sixth College. ‘ No more than 30 percent of students from any of the colleges voted on the referendum during the week-long voting period.
One student who voted against the referendum felt the council has historically mismanaged the quarterly activity fee, instated when the council was created.
‘In the past three years I’ve been at UCSD, the money we’ve been giving to the A.S. Council has obviously been going to places other than where they claim it has,’ Revelle College senior Luis Garcia said. ‘Bear Gardens always run out of beer and pizza, and the money going toward Sun God has resulted in worse bands with every year. Where is the money going?’
Marshall College senior Chris Reade said that although he had initial reservations about the referendum, he ultimately voted for the fee increase in order to preserve the quality of the campus into the future.
‘Ultimately, I thought that paying the activity fee once before I graduate was worth it for the future of UCSD and my vision of it once I become an alumnus,’ Reade said.
A.S. Vice President of Student Life Darryl Nousome expressed relief at the referendum’s success.
‘I am so excited that we can finally give student organizations what they want,’ he said. ‘Now we’ll be able to make it though the Spring Quarter, during which the most funding requests are made and the largest number of students attend events.’
Readers can contact Sarah de Crescenzo at [email protected].