Even though attendance at this year’s main keynote address for Martin Luther King Day nearly halved from last year, according to the Daily Northwestern, that doesn’t mean students paid any less to bring former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis M. Herman to campus.
ASG allocates more than $1 million annually in its student activities fee budget. Between $15 an $20 thousand of that pays for MLK Day speakers alone, while most of the rest goes to A-status student groups for guest speakers and other events, like A&O Productions concerts. That’s a difficult number to unpack, since groups don’t generally reveal how much they pay a certain speaker or musician.
But it raises another question: How much does the average student actually get out of the $132 he pays annually in student activities fees? Tickets for Office star B.J. Novak’s A&O-sponsored performance sold out within 45 minutes, but last year no more than 20 people showed up to watch actress Kathleen Turner speak when the NU Women Filmmakers Alliance brought her to Norris.
To illustrate what that $1 million looks like: You could buy 175,438 Chipotle burritos with the amount of money ASG spends on hosting speakers and other student group events – steak and pinto beans, tax not included. Click on the thumbnail below to see what we’re talking about.
