ASUO has $264,763 to spend in what it calls its over-realized fund. How did student government come across a quarter of $1 million? More importantly, how should it spend it?
At the beginning of each year, the administration projects enrollment. ASUO bases its budget — which is composed of the $215.25 incidental fee paid by each credit student — on that projection. This year, university officials underestimated enrollment. And when the actual number of I-Fee paying students is higher than the estimate, you’ve got an over-realized fund.
Student government began accepting applications from students and organizations for that money on Friday, and there’s only three requirements for requests:
• A request should benefit the UO campus.
• It should align with the ASUO’s mission.
• It should be a one-time, non-recurring event.
But what if ASUO could spend that money all willy-nilly? Let’s take a gander. Exactly how much can you buy with $264,763?
Enrollment for fall term was 24,181, according to the Office of the Registrar. That means that each student could get a $10.94 credit to their DuckWeb account.
It also means that ASUO could finance a month’s worth of Netflix streaming for every I-Fee paying student at the University of Oregon.
With the money in the over-realized fund, you could buy 21,403 18-packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon at $12.37 each, including deposit.
The over-realized fund could pay for a lot of PBR. (Creative Commons photo courtesy of Harrison Labita.)
Or 366 of the cheapest Oregon football season tickets for the coming year at $733 each, according to StubHub. If you’re springing for the high-end seats, you get 107 of them at $2,462.25 apiece.
It’s 419 tickets to Sasquatch at $631.50 each. That includes parking and camping for the whole weekend at the 2015 rate.
It’s also 38,095 orders of mozzarella sticks at Rennie’s ($6.95 each). That’s enough for each student to share a plate for seconds.
Or 88,549 Crunchwrap Supremes from Taco Bell at $2.99 each.
Need pizza for a potluck? You can pick up 44,200 Little Caesar’s Hot ‘N Ready pies at $5.99 each from the franchise location at 18th Avenue and Willamette Street. Or 52,952 from the Delta Oaks store, which charges the correct amount: $5.
You could even buy the house at 1359 E. 24th Ave., which was listed on Zillow.com for $250,000. Zillow estimates that you could even buy it for $242,000. With the leftover $20,000, you can either furnish the house or buy a 2015 Toyota Corolla and 333 Hot ‘N Ready pizzas from the Little Caesar’s on 18th.
On that note, you could just buy 15 new Toyota Corollas at $16,950 each. If you showed up with cash, chances are you could talk the dealer down to a round $16,000. And at that price, you could buy a whole ‘nother Corolla for a total of 16.
Let’s say gas averages $3 a gallon for the next year. The 2015 Corolla gets 27 miles per gallon in the city, 38 on the highway. The over-realized fund would pay for 88,244 gallons. That’s nearly 2.5 million city miles in your 2015 Toyota Corolla (or 3.27 million highway miles.) If there were a highway suspended around the Earth, you could make the trip 131 times with gas to spare in your mid-sized sedan.
It’s about $20,000 shy of twice the cost to bring Macklemore to Matt Knight Arena in 2013. Back then, the ASUO Senate allocated $140,000 to bring the Seattle rapper to town, which was later returned by a ruling by the Constitution Court.
Tuition
What if ASUO wanted to create a lottery system that paid for a year’s worth of tuition for the winners? It gets a bit tricky since in-state residents pay a different rate than international residents, which also differs from non-resident tuition. Here’s a quick run-down of what that might look like:
You could pay for 16 credits’ worth of tuition and fees for 25 in-state undergraduate students at $10,464 apiece for 2014-2015, according to the registrar’s How Much Will It Cost? calculator.
It pays for eight out-of-state students at $32,832 each for the year.
Or seven non-resident international students at $34,767 each. (Or 21 resident international students at $12,399 apiece.)
Follow Eder Campuzano on Twitter @edercampuzano