without really thinking about it, every undergraduate who is reading this article paid their ASCIT dues this term. If you dropped your ASCIT membership and are reading this, I’ll have to ask you to stop reading now, because you don’t have a subscription to this newspaper.

Besides a subscription to this illustrious publication, paying your ASCIT dues earns you a number of different privileges. With free donuts, access to DVD’s, discounted tickets to ASCIT Formal, usage of the Screening Room, a little t, and a Totem, ASCIT dues are much like House Dues: they pay for services that you can take advantage of. I know what you’re thinking – there’s no way you get $60 worth out of those things and unless you eat a whole lot of donuts, you’re probably right. But in my opinion, worrying about the value you get back is not the right way to think about ASCIT dues or House dues.

When you think of paying tuition, you should probably make the calculation of how much you’re getting back. Can that dinner really cost $11? Is a Caltech degree worth that much? Caltech is providing you a service and you’re the customer; that’s not the case with ASCIT. The Associated Students of Caltech, Inc. is a Corporation whose mission is to benefit the undergraduates of Caltech. You are a shareholder in this Corporation, and have thus pledged $60 a year toward that mission, which is not to help each member eke out a benefit, but is to serve the needs of a community of 950. Paying your ASCIT dues is a fundamentally selfless action, and it should not be done with the selfish thought of profiting from the corporation.

This selfless spirit is likely why ASCIT, Inc. is categorized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation by the IRS. This is the same designation reserved for charities like the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, or the United Way. When you pay $60 in ASCIT Dues, you are really contributing to a charity that, rather than trying to help needy children, works to help Caltech students. Did you know that if you don’t feel like you get $60 of benefit back from the dues you pay, you can write off the difference on your 1040, Schedule A?

But t about the talk of raising ASCIT dues? This topic has come up because dues haven’t been raised in almost two decades. It’s not something ASCIT is worried about this year because we’ve saved some money on accounting and also invested ASCIT’s savings in an endowment. However, the fact remains that ASCIT dues have been constant since 1984, while Caltech tuition has more than doubled. Oddly enough, it is Caltech facing budget crises while ASCIT has done just fine with its smaller income. In fact, ASCIT supports more clubs now than it ever did before and is still printing a weekly newspaper, a yearly student handbook, and an annual yearbook. It may be difficult to imagine what ASCIT would do with more money, but a brief tour through ASCIT history reveals some interesting things.

Many years ago, ASCIT supported a large fraction of the athletic program at Caltech. In 1949 this accounted for more than half of the ASCIT budget. Back then, the students had a lot of say in which varsity sports teams Caltech had and what sorts of sports facilities were maintained. Nowadays, this is completely controlled and paid for by the Institute, but as an artifact of the past, ASCIT still subsidizes athletic awards and letterman jackets. At one time, ASCIT also had complete financial responsibility for the Coffeehouse, with the managers offered an on-campus room in the SAC, but that has since passed on to Dining Services. In the late 60’s, ASCIT started an undergraduate research board that offered grants for summer research. The heir to the ASCIT Research Project is the present-day SURF program. In the recent past, ASCIT provided the majority of funding for all clubs, but today, that is not the case. The Student Affairs Department has taken a larger role in club funding over the years and now many clubs get a large portion of their money from Institute funds.

On the surface, this seems like a great thing – Caltech is dedicating more of its money towards student activities. However, if you stop and think about where that money came from, it likely has its roots in the higher tuition we’re paying. In the same way we pay ASCIT Dues, we are pooling our money in the Student Affairs fund for clubs. Except that now, rather than students deciding which causes to fund, the decision lies in the hands of administrators. So by allowing tuition to grow at a faster rate than ASCIT or House dues, we may be trading away our decision-making power.

So if you ever question the value of ASCIT dues, take a moment and compare it to tuition. Caltech takes more than $27,000 from you each year to create the kind of school environ what about the talk of raising ASCIT dues? This topic has come up because dues haven’t been raised in almost two decades. It’s not something ASCIT is worried about this year because we’ve saved some money on accounting and also invested ASCIT’s savings in an endowment. However, the fact remains that ASCIT dues have been constant since 1984, while Caltech tuition has more than doubled. Oddly enough, it is Caltech facing budget crises while ASCIT has done just fine with its smaller income.