Editorial:
Pay a little to get a lot in return


Among a gaggle of other adventures, you can see a different movie every weekend, attend a concert, enjoy monthly Bronc Buffets, spend a few evenings at the Bart Luedeke Center (BLC) Pub and help financially contribute to the 50-some organizations that offer all of these entertainment opportunities and more to the student body at Rider, all for the wee sum of $125 every semester. Seeing as movie tickets are quickly becoming almost as expensive as some concert tickets and eating is a costly habit, $125 sounds like a bargain when you consider all that it offers over the course of one semester.

The Student Activities Fee (SAF) is the once-a-semester flat fee every student pays so that the University doesn’t have to draw from our already-costly tuition payments. Paying this decidedly minimal extra fee ensures that the University can continue to offer us the things that help make college more than just four additional years of classes and meetings and deadlines. The SAF also goes to provide for services that both entertain and protect Rider’s student body, such as funding club sports and paying for security at campus events.

Some may have noticed that we’re paying $25 more toward the activity fee than we were last year. In reality, this isn’t going to break anyone’s bank; when it all adds up after every student shells out the extra few dollars, though, it makes for a comfortable increase in the SAF. Ultimately, that means that there are more opportunities for us to enjoy activities sponsored by the Student Government Association, the Residence Hall Association, the Student Entertainment Council and the plethora of groups that directly benefit from the SAF, as they’re among the more than 50 other organizations that are funded by the activities fee.

The SAF, being a considerably large pool of money that needs to be watched over by a group of responsible individuals, is handled by the Finance Board. While the student-run Finance Board does, indeed, allocate the SAF’s funds, that is not its sole function as an organization. This year the Finance Board has set out to emphasize that fact by making it a priority to educate the Rider student body on both what the SAF is and what the Finance Board does to benefit the University and the students who are paying to attend it.

Not happy with how the Finance Board members are spending your $125 slice of the SAF pie? Then go tell them about it! The weekly meetings, held every Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. in the BLC’s Multicultural Room, are open to the campus community. Additionally, the Board’s members offer open office hours to the Rider community as a way to reach those who want their voices heard but cannot attend the Wednesday meetings. The Finance Board encourages anyone at Rider to speak up whenever he or she has an opinion about the SAF that needs to be addressed. Even though the Finance Board strives to be as fair as possible when trying to figure out how much money goes in which direction, it’s difficult to make everyone happy when the “everyone” in question is made up of a few thousand college students.

For those of you who thought that every speaker, every cultural education program, every out-of-the-classroom activity was paid for by your nameless $32,000 tuition, rest assured: your friendly $125 contribution to the SAF helped the Finance Board bring another enjoyable opportunity to Rider’s campus.