We get it — you open up the SGB election ballot email to vote for your preferred student body presidential candidate, and you are greeted with an affronting referendum — should the semesterly student activity fee be raised from $100 to $125? Of course, your knee-jerk reaction is to hit “no.” Why would you want to pay an extra $25 per year for anything, especially when your tuition is increasing already?
This is what happened when the question was posed two years ago. After SGB proposed an increase in the annual student activity fee from $100 to $120, the results were overwhelmingly negative — only 46.7% voted in favor of the increase. SGB needed student approval in order to bring the request to Student Affairs, and so without enough support, the proposal died in its early stages.
That is, until Tuesday. SGB has announced it will include a referendum on its election ballot that asks students whether they would be in favor of increasing the semesterly Student Activity Fee from $100 to $125. Here’s why answering “yes” is in your best interest.
In the past five academic years, the number of allocation requests from student organizations has increased substantially, yet the amount of allocation money available has not changed. The average amount of funds requested by each student organization has increased by 82% since the 2019-2020 school year. By the beginning of February 2025, SGB had already given out nearly $500,000 out of the $900,000 they received to distribute among more than 800 student organizations throughout the academic year. SGB was approved to access $200,000 worth of reserve funds to cover student organizations’ requests last year, and this academic year, they have already had to use an additional $72,000.
According to SGB Vice President Olivia Budike, dipping into reserve funds “is not a sustainable practice and cannot be relied upon in future years.”
An increase of $25 per student, per semester, would result in $1,069,400 total added to the amount of funds available for the student body. Those $60 lift tickets through the Pitt Ski and Snowboarding club you wish weren’t so expensive? That national conference you needed funding for that was denied? $25 per semester could cover it. Plus, SGB is committed to reinvesting the remaining portion into the student community, referencing a need for menstrual equity initiatives on campus, mental health support and more inclusive campus events.
The Pitt News and SGB both publish a record of every allocation request and funding approval online. This means students will have full transparency on where that extra $25 per year is being spent, unlike university tuition.
The Student Activity Fee has not been increased since 2016, when it was raised from $80 to $100 by a similar SGB referendum. For reference, in 2016, $100 had the buying power of $137.29 in 2026, meaning that inflation alone has justified the need for an increase. Every year, Pitt’s tuition increases by approximately 2% for in-state students. $25 per semester is only around 12% of that same increase, or 0.24% of total in-state tuition. Pitt will also waive the activities fee for students who can’t afford to pay it, and SGB has expressed that they are working with the Office of Financial Aid to “discuss ways to maintain affordability” for students.
For every swimming pool of cash you or your family pays to attend this university, realistically, what is a few more dollars from people who can afford it — especially when you know that this money is going directly to Pitt students?
Vote in favor of raising the Student Activities Fee this election season. The referendum will be available on the SGB ballot, which will be emailed to the entire student body this Tuesday, March 3.