Vanderbilt Student Government’s Senate passed a bill on Oct. 14 that confirms their budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. The approved budget is a little more than $144,000, and over half of it will be allocated to student programming, with $50,000 dedicated specifically to co-sponsorships with student organizations.
The 2025-2026 budget decreased by $20,131.51 from the 2024-2025 budget. The 2025-2026 budget eliminates VSG’s partnership with Lyft, which received $10,000 in the 2024-2025 budget. Compared to last year, money given to student co-sponsorships increased from $41,000 to $50,000, and the Senate and Committee Initiatives decreased from $45,000 to $40,000.
The Adriel Bineza Graduate School Equity Fund (GSEF) decreased from $10,000 to $5,000. The GSEF was named in honor of Adriel Bineza, a former chair of VSG’s Economic Inclusivity Committee. This fund aims to support students through graduate school application fees.
In the past, there have been tense debates between VSG leaders over money allocation and backlash for how money was spent internally. In a message to The Hustler, junior Riyanka Narasimhan, VSG treasurer, said the bill passed smoothly with no controversy. She emphasized that the budget has a primary focus on students instead of internal spending.
“The main highlight of this year’s budget is the large percentage of our funding going toward student-facing programming in comparison to the amount allotted for internal programming,” Narasimhan said. “Specifically, 53.3% of the budget is going toward student-facing programming, and 5.2% is going toward internal expenses.”
In a message to The Hustler, Junior Nadeem Zaman, VSG senator, said that all of the senators widely agreed upon the budget.
“According to many senators I’ve spoken to, there was far less strife and tension over the budget this year than compared to last year,” Zaman said.
In a message to The Hustler, senior Soham Saraf, VSG president, said that VSG’s executive board does not have direct oversight over the VSG-run Student Organization Fund committee, which handles funding for registered student organizations.
“We hope the approved budget will improve student life by prioritizing student-facing initiatives,” said Saraf. “We’ve bolstered our advocacy budget, which goes directly to RSO initiatives advocating for marginalized communities on campus.”
The Senate Diversity and Inclusion Committee established the activism fund in 2022, which is available to all student organizations to use for advocacy events. This year, VSG has allocated $7,500 to the fund. The money allocated to the contingency fund, which supports additional projects and unanticipated spending, decreased from $20,724 to $5,000.
Sophomore Nicole Talledo, treasurer for Vanderbilt’s Association of Latin American Students, said that although she has yet to start the process of proposing ALAS’s budget to VSG, each organization is funded fairly given its size and activity around campus.
“Each organization is funded differently, and it depends on how big the group is or what events they do need funding for,” Talledo said. “There are several factors that go into the funding of an organization, but I do think that each organization is funded fairly for the events they host and/or places that need to be rented out.”
