Student’s dollars going to things they didn’t ask for.
By: Erica Carter & Akii Butler
Brynne Lathrop
Every year, Kent State Students look forward to celebrity performances coming to campus. They look to Kent State’s Undergraduate Student government to bring the best acts to campus, and as of recently they haven’t delivered.
USG has been put under heavy scrutiny due to students feeling as though USG has been wasting their funds and ignoring their wishes. Their last big performer, actor and singer Jesse McCartney, didn’t bring in as much positivity as the office thought it was.
Although the show did sell out, it wasn’t a decision that pleased all of the Kent State student body. The same response was also met when USG brought rapper 2 Chainz and artist Kesha. Even with USG running polls on instagram and constantly asking the student body via social media who they want to see, it seems they always miss the mark.
“The decision with Jesse Mccartney was we couldn’t have the MACC last semester due to construction and the sports schedule on top of it was very conflicting,” said Mackenzie Michalojko, USG’s Director of Programming. “We figured we still have the ballroom space,how many people can we fit in there? 1000. So I asked our agent about it and he said ‘You know who has actually selling out college shows recently is, Jesse McCartney.”
When it was reported by KentWired that USG paid comedian John Mulaney $150,000, this upset many people who felt that the comedian was paid too much.
Twitter user, @RichieMulhall tweeted “It’s important to know that students’ fees are going toward paying for an overpriced comedian and his even more overpriced agent.”
This left many students wondering and confused about how their student fees were used.
“A lot of people don’t really know this, they assume that it’s university money overall, and that could go to like salting the roads or like renovating a building when that’s not the case,” said Michalojko. “This money is specifically allocated to program shows and we can’t use it for anything but to put on these shows.”
During their time at Kent State, students pay an activity fee, from this fee USG is given a percentage of that activity fee, which is legally only allowed to be used for the programs by USG. Over the course of the school year USG is required to have five campus-wide activities using that money.
“Usually at the beginning of the year it’s around $300,000, for the entire school year,” said Michalojko. “So we only get that percentage starting in fall, we don’t get another round in the spring.”
According to reports USG’s budget for programming the current academic year is $384,000. As Michalojko said, that money is to be spread over the school year, but how are they able to afford to continue to pay for events like this when the events costs keep adding up?
“We have to balance spending that money across the entire school year because my position requires five campus-wide activities under that amount of money, said Michalojko. “That is why students will pay for it usually throughout the year so that we may be able to make the money back to continue because if we just spent the money, and it was for them, there would only be one show for the year.”
As far as events go, USG still has Flashfest, which is the annual music festival held every year at Kent State University, past headliners include Rae Sremmurd, 2 Chainz, and more.
“I just hope they finally get it right,” said Alexyss Gray, a senior sociology major. “Maybe this year they will finally listen to us.”
USG has also brought in bigger artist like Wiz Khalifa, Future, Kid Ink, Jeremih, and PARTYNEXTDOOR to satisfy the rap/hip-hop need. They tried to satisfy other audiences by bringing in Hunter Hayes, 1975, and Kesha.
USG took a hard blow when they brought back rap duo, Rae Sremmurd and paid them double. “ That was the dumbest decisions they have ever made at this school, they didn’t even make any new songs since their last performance,” said Devon Childress junior digital media production major.
With John Mulaney costing $150,000, and a previous concert with Jesse McCartney, one has to wonder what kind of funds USG has left and who they can actually afford. It’ll be interesting to see who they will get