Student Opinion: What Losing Accrued Interest Means for Campus Life

The main concern to highlight regarding this decision is its direct impact on student life, especially given that the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) has an infamously bad one. The Princeton Review ranked us as the sixth unhappiest school in the country in 2018, two years before COVID-19 ran rampant and further accentuated isolation on college campuses.

This ultimately takes funding away from the Chartered Student Organizations (CSO’s), financing that makes our campus more engaging and inclusive for students through various clubs and provides spaces for students to meet friends, gain professional experience, or find solidarity with others. If there is any time to change how we treat non-inclusivity on our campus, it would be now since student life is just beginning to recover from the after-effects of COVID-19.

Apparently, the school does not see it that way.

UHM prides itself on being a “Hawaiian-focused” university. Yet, they siphon money away from Hawaiian research projects such as the Ka Papa Lo’i ‘O Kanewai and student clubs such as Hui ‘Āina Pilipili or Ka Lama Kukui. These projects and clubs are funded through the Student Activity Fee and Program Board (SAFPB), one of the CSO’s already experiencing financial struggles with their current budget.

Not to mention that the student activity fee has remained unchanged at $12 since its inception over 40 years ago; today's adjusted cost should be around $43. That means CSO’s are already receiving less funding than they once were, so why is it acceptable that the school can take more away by taking their accrued interest.

Another resounding question is simply: interest accrued from what?

Interest in a savings account benefits the holder by keeping money in the account, determined by a fluctuating interest rate. Some years may earn more than others, but those extra funds are still rewarded for having money saved.

In this case, CSO’s earn interest for saving portions of their designated student fees year after year. The school claims the interest is separate from the mandatory fee, but that is precisely what accrued the interest in the first place.

For the Student Media Board (SMB) – where Ka Leo O Hawaiʻi and MānoaNow fall under – we have about $20,000 in compiled interest. While we will not be losing that money, it serves as a crucial emergency fund for our operations that is replenished yearly given current interest rates.

Going forward, losing the interest accrued on student fees delegated to us would further worsen our already subpar funding. Again, the student fees we operate on haven’t changed in 42 years, whereas faculty salaries have increased 124% in the same time frame.

The issue facing us is less about any injustice surrounding the siphoning of the interest on our accounts, but more about the fact we have already been struggling financially, and this decision will further emphasize that.

This is usually never the case for other forms of interest, such as those accrued on student loans, which caused the amount of borrowed funds to increase over time and are undoubtedly the account holder's responsibility to manage.

If the reallocated interest from the student fees were part of an outlined plan to renovate parts of campus that need it, I would not be as perplexed by this move as I am. However, what will be done with the money has not been clarified aside from ambiguous “campus-wide needs.”

Ironically, some places on campus that need the most renovation are the Campus Center Complex and Warrior Recreational Center (WRC), given that the air conditioning in many buildings and a large portion of the equipment in the WRC are broken. However, both places are under the Campus Center Board (CCB), a CSO which is losing funding.

The transparency of this whole ordeal, or the complete lack of it, is a significant cause for concern. Board of Regents Policy 7.202 states that campus leadership will work together with CSOs, and throughout this process, they have essentially gone behind their backs and put forward this measure that takes the interest accrued on their accounts.