Users of Fizz, an anonymous social media app for Boston College students, are familiar with the past few weeks of discussion surrounding UGBC. As of Feb. 5, a Fizz poll of 2,563 BC students showed that 85 percent disapprove of how UGBC is doing its job.
Given that Fizz skews heavily toward freshmen and sophomores, this should set off alarm bells: The students who will be on campus the longest already feel disengaged from their student government.
But does it have to be this way? I reckon not.
The most common complaint about UGBC is blunt: “UGBC doesn’t do anything.” That sentiment didn’t appear out of thin air.
A recent Heights article updated students on a Senate initiative to reorganize Agora Portal and create a corresponding app for it. The initiative was launched in January 2025 by a cohort of then-freshman senators (now sophomores).
The update? Administration believes the project will take more time. Monthly meetings will continue, and the app is on hold until the portal restructuring is sorted out.
It is not hyperbole to suggest that these senators may graduate before the initiative is completed.
To be clear, this is not an indictment of the people in UGBC. Senators and executives are not lazy. They are operating within a system that makes meaningful, timely progress painfully difficult. The problem is structural, and structures can be changed.
At last Tuesday’s Senate meeting, senators unanimously approved funding for the freshman laundry supplies initiative, which provides free laundry supplies in all freshman laundry rooms. This is exactly the kind of tangible, student-driven initiative that people want to see: practical, visible, and responsive to real needs.
And yet, initiatives like this are the exception, not the rule. Only 2.33 percent of the UGBC budget–$8,500–is allocated to senate-led initiatives. By comparison, $15,000 is allocated for a retreat and $9,525 for communications. The remainder of the budget sits largely at the discretion of faceless divisions that host events attended by fewer and fewer students.
Reform should begin with the Senate’s authority over spending. First, UGBC should implement yearly audits of all UGBC-funded events: tracking cost, attendance, and measurable student engagement. If an event consistently draws diminishing crowds with limited impact on the community it is trying to serve, it should not continue to receive automatic funding year after year.
Second, a substantially larger share of the UGBC budget should be earmarked for Senate-led initiatives, where funding decisions are publicly debated, tied directly to student demand, and subject to student accountability. Student government should not be in the business of quietly financing low-impact programming. It should be investing visibly in what students actually need.
Much of UGBC does not work. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. If serious reforms are passed to give the Senate genuine control over the power of the purse, we would see more initiatives like laundry supplies for freshmen and far fewer students shrugging and saying, “UGBC doesn’t do anything.”
