Half a year ago, members of three different organizations on campus—TRiO, WU/FUSED, and Student Union—came together to form a joint task force for a project around socioeconomic diversity on campus. That project was the Opportunity Fund, which aimed to lower the barriers to extracurricular participation for low-income students and give everyone an equal shot at the college experience. Now, the Opportunity Fund Task Force is happy to announce that the Student Union Senate and Treasury have just approved a $30,000 General Budget contribution to the Opportunity Fund—bringing us one-step closer to making our project a reality.

The Opportunity Fund is a student-led initiative that aims to reduce the financial barriers faced by undergraduates of lower socioeconomic backgrounds, provide a source of reliable funding for extracurricular activities and thereby empower students with the opportunity to attain an equitable and fulfilling college experience. The Fund targets a gap in the support of low-income students on campus that has until now been largely overlooked. Every semester, Student Union Treasury allocates a portion of the student activities fee to provide student group funding for their operations. However, despite these efforts, students are often required to contribute some of their own money in order to be an active part of their respective group. The numbers can be surprising: 81 percent of students surveyed in October of 2016 felt that financial barriers influenced their participation in club activities. As an initial step to addressing this, in its first year, the Opportunity Fund aims to provide all Pell-eligible students with a fixed subsidy for extracurricular expenses.

This initiative is not a new one, and there are many before us who provided the inspiration for this project. SU has attempted multiple times to create an Opportunity Fund over the past eight years, but regardless of the fact that each of these attempts were made in the best faith, they invariably fizzled out at the implementation phase due to financing difficulties, software issues and privacy concerns. However, the latest slew of media coverage has made it clear that much more work needs to be done to support low-income students on campus. This is why our three student groups formed a joint task force: To better understand the needs and concerns of students and to provide the basis of a concerted student effort that could lobby the Washington University community for greater support. After several weeks of discussion, the Task Force decided to reach out to Student Financial Services for aid in the implementation of the Fund. Happily, they agreed, and with the cooperation that they and other university departments have provided, we have been able to set a launch date for the Opportunity Fund in fall 2017.

Learning happens as much inside the classroom as outside of it, and being able to take up leadership positions and navigate a rich social environment is as much of the Washington University experience as being able to ace a chemistry final is. Most importantly, the ability to participate freely in extracurricular activities gives students a sense of belonging to a greater community—a key part to combating the sense of isolation that can sometimes come with being a low-income or first-generation student. No student should have to feel that their financial status prevents them from pursuing the activities that they are interested in, and no student should have to feel that their financial status prevents them from being part of the same community as their peers. In this, there is still much to be done: changing the school’s demographics, providing more official support and above all, creating an atmosphere in which socioeconomic status is not stigmatized and students need not feel shame about where they come from or who they are. Although it is a promising one, the Opportunity Fund is but the first step on Washington University’s long road to a more equitable college experience for all its students. Hopefully, it will not be its last.