Trickle-down economics are alive and well.

Budget problems have dripped down from the federal level, down to the state level, on to the university level and finally the student level. But there doesn’t seem to be a bailout for students.

While the budget cuts won’t directly affect the funding for student organizations in their budgets, there will be complications in different ways.

For Student Government, they will be asked to provide the same assistance for students with a growing list of groups seeking funding.

The university encourages students to form groups, be enterprising and take up for a cause, but then when they get going, there’s not enough money to go around. The money that is there will probably go to larger groups with more time on campus and with more established programs are already on the  minds of students getting funding.

For WRFL, one director will now have to deal with half of the scholarship that previous directors received, only she won’t be asked to do half the work and will be judged the same as her fully compensated predecessors.

For SAB, instead of being able to bring in a variety of acts and having more options that serve more communities, bigger shows like Girl Talk get the funding and the lesser programming suffers.

Just like the real economy, the little guy loses out. So SAB, SG, WRFL and others say they may not directly feel the budget or that they will have to just do more with less, while other student organizations just do less.

“The faculty and staff of this institution have responded gallantly with a consistent and tough determination to move forward though the path before us has grown more difficult to navigate.” said President Todd in a June news release.

It must be the student’s turn now.

But the last thing a university needs are students being disenfranchised by lack of funding and resources.  College is supposed to be the forum for building up the skills for a lifetime of learning. Whether it be the five-member group that wants to put on their big event for the year or a director of a college radio station, students can’t lose out to budget issues.

UK is here for the students.  The reason faculty, staff, Board of Trustees members, the president and other people in the administration have a job is because of the students.  Therefore, student organizations should not suffer from budget cuts.  The Kernel understands everybody has a role to play in these crucial economic times but the line has to be drawn somewhere.  End it with the students.