A Few Thoughts on Student Government Stipends

Most student governments with large enough budgets pay their members - usually executive positions, but sometimes members of the student legislature are compensated too. Their stated purpose is foremost explained as a way to make sure working class students aren't shut out of student government roles. Stipend use is an easy fix, and as with most easy fixes, it's also a shoddy one.

They are usually too small to be effective, and still wind up as play money for elites

Many of the stipends I've seen are entirely too small to replace even one of the several jobs that most working class students have in order to afford school. And even when they are large enough, stipends are never pegged to the office holder's income and wealth - a task that'd just take a stroll to the Financial Aid office to determine. So therefore the upper class kids who have the time and resources to actually campaign for office get this money as just another perk of the office (and for the Future Bureaucrats of America™, that's a lesson they learn quickly). It also means incumbents have yet another material advantage over challengers. If there is a student government that does have a sliding scale stipend, please let me know. I'd love to learn more about it.

Pay further stratifies the student body

Giving money to officials is one of the myriad ways that student government as an institution stratifies the student body, both socially and financially. The student government tacks fees on your tuition, and then votes to grant themselves a nice chunk of that money. They're telling everyone else that only a select few may directly get cash from student fees, for the simple fact of being elected. Everyone else must obtain funds through clubs, and with heavy restrictions on how it can be spent. Motives and intentions aside, the effect is still elitist.

It masks larger structural deficiencies

If a SG position takes up so much time and energy that significant compensation is required, that tells us more about that position than about the students trying to fill it. Especially in the case of executive committees, this is an indicator that entirely too much power and responsibility are concentrated into one position. That's not good for the student, and it's certainly not good for student politics on campus either (those with a vested economic interest in the status quo tend to be curiously unpersuaded by arguments for alternative organizational structures that threaten such an interest). My alma mater was very successful in devolving a lot of the roles previously dedicated to one person by moving them into small committees of 3-4 students. It helps prevent burnout, and also increases everyone's skill sets.

It masks larger programmatic deficiencies

Frankly, if the student government was doing what they claim to be doing, poor students would have enough financial aid that a stipend would be largely unnecessary. But as has been mentioned before, student governments simply aren't designed to effectively make serious demands on the administration. Student politicians paying themselves insulates them from the harsh economic realities the rest of their classmates face.

At best, stipends for student government work treat only a symptom of a larger problem most SGs refuse to face; at worst, they do more harm than good and push the possibility of real structural change on campus further out of reach.