The official justification for this outrageous decision is not convincing. Student-led movements within the association resulted in an organization with a conscience that refused to do business with corporations tied to the apartheid government of South Africa. But years of bad business decisions and poor management landed the association in a financial quagmire that has the current batch of leaders desperate to return to profitability. In recent years, the ratio of student to commercial space within the union has shrunk dramatically.
Prices are higher.
Amazingly, both the undergraduate and graduate governments approved, albeit reluctantly, the decision to go over the head of the student body. By supporting this proposal, student government has effectively relinquished student control of the association to career employees. University policy usually makes these sort of unexpected student union fee hikes an impossibility. In most circumstances, a binding student vote is required. But it is extraordinarily difficult to believe that association bean counters had no inkling of the need for a massive fee increase until it became too late to put it to a vote.