To find the origins of today's SiO, we must go back to the end of the 1920s, when a few students at the University of Oslo formed a group with the intention of helping students to secure paid jobs. Once the Second World War was over, SiO began to look to the future and took on a more permanent organizational form. Its range of activities grew as the number of members increased. Over the years the organisation has had to deal with various financial and organizational crises, but has survived, and now provides Oslo's student population with a whole host of services. SiO was the first organization of its kind, but others arose at institutions of higher education throughout Norway.
All students pay a small fee each term in return for which a wide range of services is provided.
The principal concept of SiO has always been that it should be an organization for the students run by the students. There are also two representatives elected by and from SiO's employees and two representatives from the university. The chair- person is always a student, and since in cases of a tied vote this person has the casting vote, the students have the majority. In practice, this means that the students govern their own service organisation. SiO's organizational chart is a complex one resembling that of a group with a number of subsidiary companies.