Students Prove a Little Tax Goes a Long Way

Submitted by advgreenbldg on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 09:03
ShareThis

By Vanessa Santos, on behalf of Second Nature team

UC Riverside Highlander Union Building

The UC Riverside Highlander Union Building
Photo Credit: UC Riverside via Tonic

Most people are forced to pay taxes. A few people are volunteering to pay them.

Breaking the common cheap-and-broke-college-student stereotype, some college students have started taxing themselves to fund some green building initiatives on their campuses. Recently, students at the University of California in Riverside – a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) – passed a fee referendum agreeing to tax themselves $2.50 per quarter for four years, so that the institution could use part of the money to install solar panels. The solar panels will be installed in a few years on top of two student union buildings on the campus.

Even though the University of California in Riverside is the most recent higher education institution to make it into the press for their student-funded green building initiatives, the idea of students raising money for green projects isn’t new.

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has an entire web page resource dedicated to illustrating schools where the implementation of student fees has helped fund campus sustainability initiatives. Just as an example – according to AASHE, students at Evergreen State College in Washington supported a $1 per credit fee increase in 2005 to fund the installation of renewable energy and energy conservation technologies on campus. The fee generates about $240,000 annually!

Financing sustainability projects on campuses seems to almost always be a primary concern for most schools. But these stories show that a little bit can really go a long way, and many students can and are willing to support the green efforts on their campuses, especially if it only costs them a few extra dollars per semester. I’m glad to see students working together with their schools to tackle some of the challenges of building green, and I’m interested in seeing what other creative approaches can be thought of in the future.

If students can pitch in two dollars toward the sustainability efforts at their schools, why can’t the administration and faculty?