Most students involved in campus organizations have at least been peripherally involved in the process of drafting a budget for approval by the Tufts Community Union Senate. It's no secret that student groups sometimes scrounge for money and put a considerable amount of time and energy into fundraising.
TCU Senate Treasurer Evan Dreifuss has a scheme that might help alleviate the financial woes of these organizations. He'd like to take part of the student activities fee and put the money into brokerage firm investments to raise the rate of return. That money is currently sitting in a Certificate of Deposit (CD) investment, earning a rate of 4.7 percent.
The prospect of a seven- to 10-percent return on the activities fee is tantalizing, but the university's associate treasurer believes the risk associated with this investment is too great to take. We believe that this risk should be carefully assessed and realistically measured before Dreifuss' proposition is shot down.
The TCU Treasury has shown an admirable entrepreneurial spirit (and one that the university should foster) in its pursuit of this investment strategy. If, as Dreifuss claims to be the case, the risk associated with brokerage investment is minimal, it might very well be a risk we should take.
After all, Tufts' very own endowment is spread over a large range of investments made across the globe. And although the activities fee is of a very different nature than the large donations that make up the school's endowment, that distinction is accounted for in the very investment plan - one with low risk - being proposed.
Making such an investment should not be taken lightly. Dreifuss contends that the autonomy TCU senators currently have over the student activities fee should encompass money management as well the power to allocate funding, but these two levels of control are quite different.
The student body, for instance, might not always have such a finance-saavy economics major in the position of senate treasurer. The risks of plunging student money into an investment firm with a dubious record are greater than those involved with a misallocation of funds. It's one thing to misdirect money; it is another to loose those bucks all together.
Happily for Dreifuss' plans, this problem does not seem so critical given the degree of oversight exercised by university administration. If the approval of Tufts' associate treasurer is required for most decisions made by the TCU Senate, much of the potential risk linked with this investment strategy could be curtailed.
All things considered, we're happy to see the school keep a rather tight leash on the senators in charge of our money. But it might be time to loosen up the slack a bit and to give student innovation a chance to make its mark.
