To the Editor:

The Yale College Council’s recent proposal to charge each student a mandatory $30 activities fee is absolutely preposterous. The YCC and the UOFC are already funded quite generously, and their respective student leaders ought to spend their allotted funding with greater prudence rather than clamor for even more “free” money.

While YCC officials are probably drooling over their dreams of having an additional $156,000 in disposable income, the rest of us ought to carefully consider whether a college student council is more qualified than we are to spend our own money. Congress would never pass a tax hike without first presenting a clearly defined spending plan. Analogously, the YCC has no right to our money without telling us precisely which organizations, programs, and events it plans to fund in the future with the additional money.

Jowei Chen ’04

April 20, 2004