Spending Where It Matters

The Student Association’s strategy to make HBS events more inclusive, accessible, and impactful

This year’s Student Association set out with an aim to make our events more inclusive and accessible to the student body, while also diversifying the types of events we provide. One of our priorities has been ensuring that our budget reflects those goals and directs spending in a way that maximizes value for students.

Building Community in an Uncertain Campus Environment

The Student Association (SA) exists separately from the university as an independent 501c3 nonprofit. The SA is responsible for organizing many of the events that make our community special, including Holidazzle, RC / EC Gala, the Harvard / Yale tailgate, Start Week and Section Olympics, and Bridges events. As a nonprofit, all of our revenue—dues, products, and event tickets—is reinvested directly back into these events. 

One challenge this year is the broader financial uncertainty at Harvard University and Harvard Business School. This year, Student Activities & Support (SAS), a team in the school’s administration, has operated with reduced budgets for community events. As many students have noticed, several discretionary spending items have been eliminated, such as on-campus social events and the closing event for Weekend Sprints. 

In response, the SA has worked to help fill that gap, providing funding for critical community programs such as Start Week, Section Olympics, and section t-shirts, which we feel play an important role in building shared experiences and section identity. We’ve also increased our budget for community events—for example, in the absence of a university-hosted event, the SA threw the inaugural SA Fall Fest, featuring a food truck and a live performance by the HBS band, the Fiduciaries. To help cover the cost of these events, we’ve brought on new sponsors such that the budget has not been re-allocated from other areas.

Bringing Down Cost of Attendance for Flagship Events

At the same time, we’ve been deliberately directing our budget toward reducing the cost burden of our marquee events (Holidazzle and RC / EC Galas). Research and student feedback around financial inclusivity consistently highlight one of the biggest pain points: the add-on costs associated with student events and parties. 

This year, we are directing more funding than ever before into student events. Ticketed events are the single largest line item in the SA budget, representing 65% of annual budget. This directly subsidizes these events—for example, Holidazzle was subsidized over $50 per ticket to help keep tickets affordable.

In addition to direct subsidies, we’ve implemented new mechanisms to keep prices down. Tickets were free for all fully aided students, an initiative that began last year through collaboration between the SA and the Student Senate. We also partnered with Juno, an HBS-founded startup, to provide $20 discounts to 250 students. Together, these efforts allowed us to keep the net ticket price far below inflation and broadly in line with last year’s pricing.

We’re excited to carry this momentum forward into the RC and EC Galas, which will be among the biggest and most ambitious events the SA has ever delivered. We’re investing unprecedented levels of our budget into making these events great, while keeping them accessible to as many students as possible.

Delivering More Value for Students

Another common pain point raised by students has been the cost of printing. As a result, the SA piloted a $10 printing credit last year. This year, we are excited that this effort has been expanded to subsidize printing $40 per student. Importantly, this subsidy is now funded by the school rather than the SA, allowing us to reinvest $20,000 back into community events instead of printing costs.

This year, our Products Office has also featured a wider range of merchandise, including the classic Patagonia fleeces, new Harvard-Yale merch, class t-shirts, Cotopaxi backpacks, scarves, and more to come this spring. All proceeds from the products office are reinvested back into supporting community events. Make sure to stop by the Products Office in Spangler to check out the merch while it is still on the shelves!

In closing, we believe that our budget should reflect our values. This year, those values are centered on improving access, increasing inclusivity, and keeping student life affordable. We’re proud of what we’ve been able to deliver so far, and we welcome feedback and suggestions as we continue this work through the Spring semester.

Ben Rubin (MBA ‘26) is the Chief Financial Officer of the HBS Student Association, which is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit.